Impossible to Ignore
by anonythemouse
Summary: From the ruins of a vibrant city, a love that defied the odds. Santana has come to find a suitable husband.  Her father will do anything to keep her from a maid.  When fate throws them together, their sizzling electricity is impossible to ignore.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Okay, so, I had every intention of never writing again after my first story. That is, until I was sitting in class on Friday, bored out of my mind, and _this_ came to mind and wouldn't go away. :) I suspect this will be around 15 chapters, give or take, depending on if people like it or not. I'm not going to bother writing it if no one likes it, haha. :) Anyway, let's get on with some admin stuff, shall we? Okay!**

**This is a period piece. It is set in San Francisco in 1906. So, obviously this story is AU. Also, the Brittana will be slow to form, but the outcome will be all the richer for it, right? ...right? Oh, and this chapter sets up backstories and the general feel of the time and plot, etc, etc, so not too too much happens by way of actual action, but it's still important. :)  
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**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. It would be vastly different if I did.**

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><p>The piercing shriek of the northbound train's whistle woke Brittany Pierce. Blinking the sleep from her eyes and staring into the darkness, it took her a few seconds to remember why this was an important day. When she did, she shivered in eager anticipation and threw back her blanket. Mrs. Sylvester had given it to her. It was worn and patched, but the thick wool was still warm.<p>

The train whistle came again, louder. Brittany could clearly picture in her mind the long, dark cars of the Central Pacific freight train clattering around the bend below the Channels Street station. Brittany pulled the blanket back up to cover her face, waiting, listening. A minute later, it came. The third hollow whistle-screech, fading into the strong, steady rhythm of the steam engine as the train rolled north toward Napa.

Brittany laid still for a minute more, trying in vain not to think about Arthur, her heartbeat racing. She forced her rapid breathing to slow, straining to hear the first of the Chinese lily wagons. There it was. Right on time, as usual. Wheels creaking over the soft, huffing breath of the horses, the wagon passed beneath her window, the scent of the flowers it was bringing in from the fields wafting through Brittany's thin window pane.

At the first muffled crow of Mrs. Sylvester's rooster, shut up in the coop behind the boardinghouse, Brittany sighed. She stretched her long, lean limbs. These were the daily sounds that meant it was almost 4:00—about an hour before sunrise—and time for her begin her day.

Once again, Brittany threw back her covers, but this time she sat up and swung her feet to the chilly floor, shivering. Her thin muslin nightgown did nothing to block the moist cool of the morning, and without looking she knew it was foggy outside. March mornings in San Francisco always were.

Brittany pushed her long, blonde hair back over her shoulders, then struck a Lucifer and turned up the gas in her wall lamp. The flame flickered, and then sprung to life, the wick emitting an acrid scent. She turned the gas down so that the lamp gave off just enough light for her to see while getting ready for work. Mrs. Sylvester paid the tenants' water and sewage costs, but the gas bills were divided up amongst the boarders, so Brittany tried to use as little of the lamp oil as possible in order to save money.

Walking over to the old-fashioned wash basin in the corner of her room, Brittany bent and splashed some water onto her face and neck, then straightened, drying herself off with her threadbare flannel towel. There was a bathroom and water closet on the second floor, but Mr. Evans would be in it now. He was the house's earliest riser, since he worked for Zizes' Bakery delivering bread and pastries to the financial district's restaurants before they opened for business each day.

Waiting outside the bathroom door would be Mr. Tanaka, frantically rubbing his grizzled beard and muttering to himself. Brittany pitied him. He used to be a speculator back in the '80s and had made a considerable fortune in stocks, but then he lost it all in a failed investment. It had sadly cost him his sanity. He sold buttons and notions for the T.C. Kellermant Company now, carting his large black case aboard the train at least twice a week to call on his accounts in Sacramento and Napa. He boarded the ferry twice a month and sold his goods to the dry-goods stores in Oakland. He always complained that in Oakland, the ranchers' wives were two years behind the fashion, and in San Francisco the women were two years ahead.

Mr. Tanaka was harmless, but he talked to himself almost constantly when no one was speaking to him, usually about the unfairness of life. Brittany couldn't argue with him on that, but his bitterness frightened her. Life had dealt her a bad hand as well, but she was determined not to fall into a sad and angry middle age. _She_ was going to find a way out of the mission district.

Smiling, Brittany giggled to herself. "It is so simple. I will marry a good man, work very hard with him at whatever his business is, and love him forever." She arched her back, stretching, and yawned. _Maybe I have already found the perfect man, _Brittany allowed herself to think. "Mrs. Arthur Abrams," she said aloud. Then she blushed.

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><p>Santana Lopez was riding hard over the rocky ground. Her horse was lathered with sweat, its breathing labored and ragged, but she kept her heels against its sides. As the ranchhouse finally came into view, a curl of smoke coming from the chimney, she scanned the outbuildings and corrals as she galloped closer. She needed her father, or better yet, Burt, but she couldn't spot anyone except old George Cook, mucking out the milk cow's stall.<p>

Reining in beside the corral, Santana hit the ground running towards the house and flung the door open wide with a bang. Her father and Burt were standing before the hearth, coffee cups cradled in their work-roughened hands.

"Burt and I were just settling up what needs to be done before we leave for the city in the morning," Santana's father said. Once he took notice of his daughter's demeanor, he narrowed his eyes. "What's wrong?"

"That Kentucky blood mare, Papa," Santana began, pausing to take a breath, as out of breath as if she had run the distance on foot.

"She foaling?" Burt demanded, placing his coffee cup down on the mantle, already heading out the door before Santana could respond.

"Yes," Santana managed to get out as she followed Burt, her father right on her heels.

"Where?" Burt shouted back over his shoulder.

Santana ragged in another long breath, "Up by Pleasant Point meadow, and she's having a lot of trouble."

"Good thing you found her," Santana's father commented approvingly as they hurried down the porch towards the corral, boots clattering across the planks. He took in Santana's weary horse and the corrals and yelled in George's general direction, "Catch up my grey, and pull the tack off of this one for Santana's bay mare."

"I'll get my gelding," Burt said, already running towards the bunkhouse corral.

Santana sprinted after her father, the early morning air cool against her heated face, her dark hair fanning out beneath her hat, the vast expanse of the sky pale blue above.

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><p>Twirling fluidly around in her tiny bedroom, Brittany put off getting ready for work for just a little while longer. She curtsied, humming a waltz she had heard the dining room orchestra play. Maybe she would be going to balls and soirees at the Palace Hotel soon, instead of cleaning its rooms.<p>

She stopped dancing and blushed again. Arthur _had_ asked her to come see him before work today. Certainly, his request was highly improper, and if they were caught it would cost her her job, but he had been quick to assure her that she could remain in the hallway and that all he wanted was to talk to her about something important.

Brittany breathed in a long, shuddering breath to try to steady her jitters, then let it out in a large whoosh as she rehung her towel on the hook beside her wash basin. "Today could be the day," she whispered to herself, biting her lip and smiling. "Arthur might want to confess his attraction to me. Maybe even his _love_." Brittany closed her eyes tightly, daring to hope.

Arthur always smiled as soon as he saw her, and his brown eyes were soft and attentive, as though every word she spoke was precious to him. It made Brittany giddy to think about his beautiful eyes, framed in wire-rimmed eye glasses, the fine shining of his hair, his narrow, but firm shoulders. He walked like a prince—like he owned every room he strode into. _If he does love me, life as I know it will change forever._

Smiling at the thought, Brittany started to dance around her small room again, imagining herself waltzing across a polished dance floor in a grand ballroom with Arthur, barely managing the second turn before running into her bed, spurring on another fit of giggles. "A fine, graceful wife I am going to make," she scolded herself.

Carefully grasping her thin muslin nightgown, Brittany pretended that she was lifting a heavy-hemmed, deep blue velvet ball gown instead. Slowly, her head held high, Brittany began to waltz again, more mindful of her steps, gliding around her room and letting herself get lost in her dream for a moment. She was no longer merely Brittany Pierce dancing alone in her tiny bedroom. No, she was Mrs. Arthur Abrams, being whisked around by her tall, handsome husband, the envy of every woman at the ball. As his wife, she would never have to come back to this shabby little boardinghouse – except to get Mama's trunk. Inside it were some clothes, her mother's small, silver hairbrush, and her father's prayer book. They were the only things she cared about at all in this place.

Brittany immediately stopped dancing, ashamed of herself. She cared about Mrs. Sylvester. The old woman had been motherly, in her brusque, cantankerous way, and it meant a great deal to Brittany.

Brittany bit her bottom lip, thinking. Maybe Arthur would agree to take Mrs. Sylvester in. Sure, she could be combative, but she was pleasant enough if people were respectful to her, and she was very strong in her way, even though she resembled a fragile wading bird, with her thin legs and long neck. Brittany smiled once more as she imagined dancing away into the sunset with the handsome and kind Mr. Abrams, a charming chamber set aside in their vast estate for Mrs. Sylvester.

Shutting her eyes, Brittany made heaven a promise. If she could just have a chance at that sort of life, she would join the famous and generous Mrs. Hearst and her friends in charity committees. She would even join that peculiar, fiery Mother Mary McDermott of the Flying Rollers of the House of David, and anyone else who was trying to help the poor orphans of San Francisco.

Brittany grinned, imagining herself sweeping down the street in a beautiful silk dress, stylish hat, and pristine gloves. She would build an orphanage! It would be clean and bright, and the children would never be beaten or frightened with stories of hellfire and eternal damnation. They would be taught skills with which to support themselves throughout their lives, and they would be allowed time to dance and play: the very antithesis of St. Andrew's Orphanage. The children would be happy, not miserable and terrified as she had been. Oh, how she hated the frigidly pious nuns! Only nuns with warm smiles and love to give would be allowed to teach in her orphanage.

Brittany caught her breath and laughed aloud at the grandiosity of her fantasies. "Silk dresses and philanthropy, indeed!" she whispered to herself, staring at the battered trunk that held her entire inheritance.

Feeling silly and intensely aware of her threadbare nightgown, Brittany parted her heavy bombazine curtains. She made them from an old, striped walking dress of Mrs. Sylvester's that the old woman had given her. It had been designed way back in the '60s, Mrs. Sylvester had told her, during the War Between the States. The fashion back then had been dresses with skirt hoops so wide two women could not pass each other on the sidewalks. There had been more than twenty yards of the heavy material – more than enough for a pair of flounced curtains.

Brittany peeked out, then opened the curtains the rest of the way. Behind the heavy cloth, the tiny square of her window was ebony black. There wasn't a single amble twinkle of a neighbor's gas lamp, not a glimmer of the electric lights in the tall buildings up on Market Street. It was as though the world had disappeared, especially since the fog seemed thicker than usual this morning.

Impulsively, Brittany opened up the window and stood before the opening in her nightgown. She was sure no one would be able to see her through the early morning fog. She leaned out halfway and looked down toward the street. The sound of delivery boys popping their buggy whips and a distant automobile motor drifted through the heavy mist. She could hear Mr. Puckerman coughing in the room below hers. His asthmatic breathing was terrible sometimes, but he would fall back to sleep eventually, she knew. He wouldn't be getting up for several hours yet, since his work at the Harkenstein saloon didn't start until noon.

Shivering again as the cool mist started to drift in through the window, Brittany closed the window and began to dress. She quickly pulled off her nightgown and slid into her chemise and vest. Next, she sat on her narrow hearth and unrolled her thick, woolen stockings, enjoying the faint warmth in the stone, a lingering gift from last night's tiny fire. There was a small, gray ring of ashen clinkers in her fireplace. She had only used a little bit of her precious hoard of coal.

Mrs. Sylvester gave her tenants a bargain. She sold lump and walnut coal to them by the bucket for only a little more than she paid for it by the ton. It was soft and burned slow and smoky, but it was much better than nothing. Wood was much too dear and expensive for common folks. Only the grand houses and mansions up on Nob Hill could afford to have sweet-smelling logs crackling in their fireplaces. The rest of the city had to put up with the oily stink of coal.

Brittany slid her feet into her stocking, first extending one leg then the other. Still quivering with the morning chill, she stood and pulled her stockings up the rest of the way. She wished that spring would hurry up and arrive already. How much longer would it be before the nights warmed up?

Next, Brittany pulled on her stocking supporters, straightening the elastic so it wouldn't cut into her skin. Terry at work kept talking about a new type of stocking with unbleached cotton feet and soles. She swore they rested her feet, that now she never had to soak her feet in Epsom salts after work. Brittany's feet didn't hurt too much yet, but she knew they would by the time she was twenty-five or so. Poor Terry was forty-four, and the hard work at the Palace was almost more than she could bear now.

Brittany removed her corset from the hook inside her wardrobe. The head housekeeper at the Palace was very strict about tardiness, and the staff supervisor was even worse. Any girl caught being late more than once or twice, whether they had a legitimate excuse or not, stood in very real danger of losing her position. As she continued getting ready, Brittany allowed herself one quick daydream…a familiar one. She pictured herself telling Mrs. Beiste that she was quitting. Brittany changed the scenario a little bit each time she let herself have this thrilling last-day-of-work fantasy at all.

In the beginning, she imagined herself gray-haired and accepting a gold watch as a reward for her many years of service to the hotel. Later, when she had first begun to learn how to sew, she entertained the fancy that her careful handiwork had caught the eye of a wealthy patroness who had insisted that she set Brittany up in her own shop. This morning, however, Brittany imagined herself gleefully leaning close to Mrs. Beiste's unhappy visage to whisper the best excuse of all for her lateness – that Arthur Abrams had proposed to her and demanded that she never work another day.

Laughing, Brittany crossed her arms over her body and reached around her waist to pull the corset laces tight, then brought the strings to the front to tie them. She glanced at her starched white uniform hanging on the tatty old dress form by her bed. The form was yet another gift from Mrs. Sylvester. It was left over from her days as a seamstress, before her eyesight went and she couldn't sew anymore.

For a second, Brittany allowed her imagination to run free again, turning her white linen uniform into a cascading gown of fine chiffon and lace. She hadn't actually told Arthur that she was an orphan yet. He wouldn't be upset that he would be the one paying for the wedding, and not her father, would he?

Sighing guiltily, knowing full well that her mother wouldn't have approved for an instant such time-wasting flights of fancy, Brittany looked out her window again, this time, not to daydream, but to gauge the time. There was no shine of the distant sun in the East, no flicker at all in the dense fog; however, it was turning grayish now, which meant it was almost 4:30.

As she combed and braided her long, silky blonde hair, Brittany began to hum an old Dutch melody. It had been one of her Mama's favorites, a quick-time tune for fiddlers. Mama might not have approved of her daydreams, but she would be looking down from heaven, happy and proud if they came true. So would her Papa, Brittany was sure. She remembered them as perfect, loving, and wonderfully kind. But they had died of tuberculosis when she was barely 7. Mrs. Sylvester said that if they had lived a little while longer, Brittany would have begun to see them as people with faults and flaws. But they hadn't.

Brittany forced a smile as she looked at herself in her small mirror. The orphanage had fed and clothed her until she was ten. She had a good job now, a kind, to her at least, landlady, and a warm room. That was considerably more than some could say. There was no point in her having sad thoughts about her past, not on a day that promised to be the beginning of her bright and blissful future. Pinching her cheeks to heighten the pale pink flush that seemed to always be present, Brittany steeled herself to face whatever was to come. If Arthur didn't announce his intentions today, he might soon enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This is for the 3% of the people who read the first chapter who actually seemed to like it. You all inspired me to write this in between grading papers, so thanks! :) **

**Anyway, welp, there's no Brittany in this chapter, but we get lots more Santana, so...that's good, right? Oh, and a couple other Glee characters who didn't make an appearance last chapter. Some will be more important and prominent than others.** **Well, anywho, I hope some of you enjoy this chapter! Thanks for reading, at any rate, and I apologize in advance for wasting your time if you hate it, lol. ;) Review if you want, don't if you don't...You know, and junk. ;)**

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><p>Riding eastward down the foggy, unpaved road toward home, Finn Hudson knew he was in for at least a few days of trouble with his wife. He had stayed up half the night wandering around the dim streets of Oakland, and eventually he ended up at Jim Callister's saloon playing poker. He had won a little at the poker table, but it didn't matter how much he had won. No matter how large his winnings were, it never stopped his wife, Elizabeth, from lecturing him about the evils of hard drink and gambling, and this time would be no different, he was sure. His wife, the former Miss Elizabeth Mason, was a goody-goody from her head to her shoes.<p>

Finn was tired of Elizabeth's long-winded lectures. He had heard far too many of them in the three short years they had been married. Elizabeth was a staunch temperance believer. She hated hard drink and everything that went with it, especially gambling and saloon girls – in essence, everything that Finn loved. He only married her because of her spotless family name and the money that went with it, which helped support his _habits_, and he knew she wouldn't leave him because of her strong religious convictions. The entire situation was rather ideal for Finn; all he had to do to maintain his preferred lifestyle was endure his wife's harangues a few times a week.

Finn reined in his gelding, looking out over the bay at the fog bank that hid the distant city of San Francisco. That was where he wanted to live – not here, where people's idea of a good time was a cattle auction or a horse sale. While the ranch hands liked cards and drink, they were dirty and smelled like their work. Finn wanted to rub elbows with San Francisco's high society, not these simpletons who couldn't appreciate his _sophisticated_ tastes.

His gelding arched its neck, trying to loosen the reins. The horse was hungry and tired and wanted to cover the muddy ground as quickly as possible. Finn didn't. Why hurry home to a lecture and an argument?

Fog-blurred figures in the distance caught Finn's attention, and he leaned forward in his saddle, squinting. There were two riders approaching. No, there were three – a man and two women, oddly only one of whom was riding sidesaddle. As they got closer, he could see that all three had the practiced ease that came from hours in a saddle. "Ranchers," Finn bitterly grunted aloud. "All dressed up to go to town."

Finn watched the woman astride the sidesaddle, who was riding a spirited, fleet-footed horse. She kept well in front of the other two riders. She had the slim, wasp waist of a girl, and the spill and drape of her chocolate brown riding skirt looked expensive even from afar. Finn didn't need Sarah to whisper in his ear that her outfit fit a bit too close, even for fashion. He could appreciate that fact for himself as he leered openly as the young woman rode toward him.

As the distance between himself and the riders closed, Finn stared intently at the stern, fierce face of the man. He looked familiar…then Finn recognized him. Marco Lopez. One of the smart big-money boys who had bought in at the right time and made a fortune in beef cattle. He was a prominent fixture at election time, always campaigning for the railroaders' candidates. Like all the other cattlemen, Marco Lopez wanted railheads every five miles. It made sense. The cattle ranchers made their money by shipping their cattle all over the country. The more railroads there were, the more easily and quickly the cattle could travel across country, allowing for the cattle ranchers in California to expand their markets and sell more of their cattle clear across on the other side of the country in the Midwest, and even the East if the price was high enough.

Finn focused his tired mind and opened his bloodshot eyes as the riders approached. It was well known that the youngest Lopez girl wore clothing copied from the little dolls sent over from Paris, France, every spring. Elizabeth would want to know everything – the color of the fabric, the cut, her hat and gloves, the way her hair was dressed.

"Good morning," the young woman said as she passed Finn. He tipped his hat, taking one last moment to enjoy the view, and then touched it again to greet Marco Lopez. The young woman who brought up the rear, who was wearing a riding skirt that was decidedly less extravagant than her sister's that allowed for her to ride with a leg on either side of the animal, was unquestionably Lopez's daughter. She had her father's striking, angular features, but her eyes were a deeper, warmer brown, not her father's lighter, cold sienna. The woman wore no fancy gloves or hat, either. Rather, her hair was half pinned up, and the rest flowed out around her shoulders like a dark cape. She nodded to him tersely, and Finn returned the gesture.

Once all three had passed, Finn turned in his saddle to watch them ride into the fog again and out of sight. The younger girl's skirt had an odd and fancy pleating along the hem, and her hat was topped with three nodding ostrich plumes. Weren't they out of style? Elizabeth would surely want to know all the details.

Finn lowly began to whistle an upbeat tune as he let his gelding have its head. The lecture might not last more than half an hour or so. He would wait until Elizabeth rand own a little, then mention the Lopez family casually, as though he wasn't sure they would interest her in the slightest.

_Salvation comes from odd places,_ Finn thought, smiling smugly at his clever plot. _This is the kind of mystery Elizabeth loves. Fancy that – the well-known Lopez's, out riding just past dawn all dressed up for the opera, almost. On their way across the bay certainly. The old man had looked angry, the first-born daughter had looked worried…Oh, yes, Elizabeth would surely want to know!_

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><p>"Santana? Hold up."<p>

Santana Lopez ignored her sister's irritated glance, suppressing her own frustration, and reined in at the sound of their father's voice.

"Yes, Papa?"

"Call me Father.'

"Father," Santana echoed. She did have to admit that the formal address fit this morning. She wasn't used to seeing Papa dressed in gentleman's clothes. Usually, when Papa left the ranch to go into San Francisco, he traveled alone.

Papa spurred his gelding and caught up, reining in to ride alongside Santana. "Burt says the foal is going to live."

Santana nodded.

"The mare, too, thanks to you. If you had missed them, the coyotes would have gotten the foal, weak as the dam was afterward."

"So Burt told me." Santana leveled her gaze on her father, sure that the blood mare and her foal weren't the reason he had ridden closer to talk. They had covered all of this in the barn outside the stall before they left.

Abruptly, Rachel gave her nervous mare more rein and cantered farther out into the lead. She sat her sidesaddle perfectly, shoulders back, head high, the long silk of her riding skirt covering her boots.

"I'm worried about her," Marco Lopez muttered.

Santana nodded, watching her sister intently. So was she. Rachel was delightful, and she loved her. She was also, however, the kind of stubborn, rebellious beauty who all too often came to no good.

"I'd marry her off in an instant if there was a suitor I thought deserved her."

Santana turned to face her father, trying to ignore the unfamiliar clothing that made him look like a stranger. The black woolen trousers looked odd against the saddle leather, and Papa's usual high-crowned hat had been traded for a stiff black bowler that sat high on his forehead. He looked more like a high-stakes gambler than a rancher.

"I want to settle you both in the next few years," Papa was saying.

Santana acknowledged her father's comment with a vague nod, hoping not to get her father started. By "settle," Papa meant married. Santana was twenty and in no hurry at all. Papa seldom let her off the ranch, and there had been little opportunity to meet young men. The occasional dance out in Grass Valley was welcome entertainment, but she had known most of the young men all of her life. Even the handsome ones seemed more like brothers than potential suitors, not that they didn't try all the same. She just has never felt any true spark of attraction with any member of the opposite sex. In truth, she'd much rather end up a spinster, working the ranch, than married off to any man her father would approve of, or any at all, really. She simply could not imagine herself truly loving a man in the forever way her mother loved her father.

"May I gallop, Father?" Rachel's voice snapped Santana out of her reverie, and she flicked her gaze to her sister, who was reining in and twisting around in her sidesaddle to face them. "Canela wants a good run."

Papa grunted and nodded his approval. "Watch her footing, it's…sand," Papa said, pausing because Rachel was already gone, her hat-plumes flying as the mare rose into a canter and then flattened, stretching out into a hoof-pounding gallop.

Santana watched her sister for a few seconds, shaking her head at her free-spirited sister, then turned toward her father again. "You'll never get her to marry someone you choose, Pap—Father," she quickly corrected herself. _Nor me,_ she thought silently.

"She is as strong-willed as your mother was," Papa agreed.

"Not just strong-willed," Santana said quietly. Santana had always felt protective of her younger sister, and that feeling only intensified after their mother passed away when Santana was 8 and Rachel was 5, still too young to fully comprehend what was happening, but Rachel, being the confident go-getter she was, never really cared for being watched as closely as Santana preferred. She nudged her gelding into a jog. Her father followed suit. Neither of them felt very comfortable letting Rachel simply thunder out of sight. Nor did they want to appear to be chasing her.

"I know," Papa said after a few seconds. "She's got a wild streak." He hitched himself up, standing in his stirrups to stretch. "And that's half the reason we're going into the city for a few months."

Santana grinned at her father. "I thought you wanted me to meet the cattle buyers, and for both of us to see Caruso sing, and to go to a few dances, and—"

"I do," her father cut her off. "But I also want to have you both about settled by the end of our stay. Rachel, certainly—but you too, Santana."

Santana leaned down, pretending to straighten her stirrup in order to hide her scowl. Her father might want to see her engaged within a few months, but San Francisco seemed a ridiculous place to look for a husband to help run a ranch. The _Alta_ and the _Examiner_ were always full of gossip about each year's crop of society gentleman bachelors. She didn't want that type of a man.

"I don't want to marry yet," she said aloud. _Or ever, _Santana thought before correcting herself. No, she did want to marry. Just, in her own time and in her own way. Not in a mere few months in a city where she was surrounded by pampered _gentlemen _who had never known a day's work in their lives.

Her father nodded. "But you will when you meet the right young man."

Santana scoffed slightly and shook her head defiantly. "How will I know him? By the knot of his cravat? The price of his suit? That's not love."

"Right now, you sound like Ms. Jackson, Santana. Bitter about a love that turned cold."

"That scandal happened the year I was born, Papa," Santana replied, laughing.

"It did," her father agreed. "But you have heard of Harold Figgins?"

Santana nodded. "Of course, but—"

"That's what I want to spare you and Rachel. And myself. We don't have a fortune to match Ms. Jackson's, but we have enough to attract that kind of man and that kind of nonsense. Figgins ruined her, you know, and then went insane himself. Affairs of the heart always end badly." Santana watched her father reposition his stiff new hat. "Your mother and I were a good match. I respected her entirely."

Santana simply kept her eye on her sister in the distance. She had brought her mare back in hand and was cantering in a wide half-circle, most likely setting up to gallop back to them. She didn't answer her father, and just as she was hoping, the conversation died.

As they rode through the streets of Oakland, Santana dropped back a little and let her sister's animated chatter entertain Papa. Rachel was in higher spirits than usual. At least one of them was looking forward to the trip. She looked beautiful; her cheeks were flushed slightly from the chilly air, her gloved hands sure and skilled upon the reins of her high-strung mare. Santana had always been slightly jealous that Rachel looked so much like their mother – with her squared jar, slight frame, and prominent nose – but Santana loved her sister dearly. They got along very well, even though their personalities were worlds apart. While Rachel was outspoken, hated ranch work, and loved dressing up in the most extravagant of dresses, Santana was reserved, wanted to run the ranch on her own one day, and hated the frilly attire society deemed appropriate for females of her status – all of her father's attempts to get her to dress as Rachel does were met with flat-out refusal by his eldest daughter. Santana's attention was ripped from her thoughts when Santana noticed two men across the street turning to stare openly as Rachel passed, not even bothering to hide their lascivious smirks. Papa was right to worry about her. Santana could hold her own against such behavior, but Rachel was innocent and far too trusting to protect herself from unwanted advances.

The road down to the ferry was muddy. The endless spring fogs kept everything wet. When they dismounted at the livery stable, Rachel lifted her skirt well above her ankles, drawing a glare from Papa, even though no one was close enough to see. She made a pouty face and walked the aisle between the stalls back to the road. Santana followed Papa into the livery office.

"How long?" the man was asking.

"For my gelding, a few months, so I will need your boy to exercise him. I have a man riding in tonight to take the other two back to the ranch."

The man hooked his thumbs into his suspenders. "How about three months and a day's board charge now, and we can settle up on the rest later, Mr. Lopez?"

Santana watched her father nod, and then turned to flip through the pages of a Sears, Roebuck catalogue lying on the liveryman's desk. She saw riding outfits not much different from Rachel's that were priced at less than a quarter of what her dressmaker charged Papa. _Papa regards it as a good investment, though,_ Santana thought, somewhat mockingly. _If Rachel is going to interest a young man of good family and financial substance, she will be expected to look the part. Of course, as Papa was just saying not too long ago, it could also attract men of a less-than-moral nature…I guess the good outweighs the bad when it comes to attire. _ Santana chuckled to herself as she shook her head at the foolishness of it all.

She flipped past the men's hats and stopped on a page with pictures of riding tack. She needed a new stock saddle for a gelding Papa had given her. The animal was so broad-backed that there wasn't a saddle on the ranch that didn't pinch-fit it. Santana let a few more pages fall and realized she was staring at women's corsets. Snapping the catalogue shut, she glanced up and felt a blush rise in her cheeks. Santana had no idea why she felt embarrassed and almost _guilty_ for catching herself looking at corsets, but she quickly concluded it was because perusing such intimate apparel was inappropriate for a public venue such as the livery and decided to ignore the feeling. Taking a quick glance at her father, she saw that Papa and the liveryman were talking horses now. Papa had seen a good mare in one of the stalls.

Knowing that that conversation could last a while, Santana wandered out the door, her new boots making a hollow rhythm against the wooden planks of the sidewalk. She stood in the fog-chilled air, looking up at the sky. At home, it had been a clear dawn, promising a sunny day. They had ridden into the fog bank that blanketed the coast every morning. She looked down the street. Rachel had walked half a block.

"Santana!" Rachel called when she saw her. "Make Papa hurry! I hear the foghorn!"

Santana shouted back at Papa and got a terse response. Rachel put on her pouty face again her gloved hands on her hips. Santana half expected her to stomp her foot, then storm off, like she did at home whenever she frustrated that didn't get what she wanted immediately. As it was, Rachel was merely standing, huffing slightly in mild irritation, on a board laid across the mud in front of the livery, her skirts safe from the morass. Her tight-laced waist was slim as a little girl's, her back bent into a fashionable "S" shape by the steel in her corset. Santana didn't know how Rachel withstood the infernal device that she insisted on wearing, claiming that it made her look even more lady-like. Santana herself wore a straight-backed corset that allowed for her to complete her daily duties on the ranch fairly comfortably; a corset like Rachel's wouldn't let her do such things in the slightest. However impractical Santana found her corset, she had to admit that her sister did look more delicate, like a drawing from Godey's, with her hair tucked beneath her hat, a loosened tendril or two falling down the nape of her neck. Further up the street, some men stood in front of a blacksmith's shop looking at her. Santana sent them a scathing glare that made them look away immediately.

"Father?" Santana shouted, turning back into the livery, emphasizing the formal address Papa had been trying to drill into them. Then she looked back at her sister. She was flicking her forefinger at her shoulder. No doubt a spatter of mud from Canela's dancing hooves had soiled the cloth.

Santana grinned. The trunks—all of them already shipped to the Palace Hotel—contained a number of new gowns, all flattering and at the height of fashion, all expensive. Not that Santana could really talk. She, too, had a couple new, fairly expensive dresses purchased for this trip, having been compelled by her father to buy them for the more formal gatherings they would be attending in the next few months. At any rate, though, Rachel's wardrobe made up nearly three quarters of what they had packed for this journey to the city. Papa had borne the wagon-loading grimly and silently.

"Let's get down to the landing," Papa said, emerging from the office. His tone was brisk, as though he needed to urge them along. Santana turned to hide her smirk and fell into step behind her father.

As they caught up with her, Rachel lifted her skirts again, dancing along the board. With an agile little hop at the end, she leapt the last of the puddles and landed on the cobblestones below. She smiled winningly over her shoulder, and Papa offered her his arm—as though she suddenly needed help navigating a little mud. Santana didn't know whether she should be grateful or upset that he didn't treat her in such a way. _Grateful. Definitely grateful, _she thought as she noticed her sister's shoulders slump ever so slightly as she accepted her father's proffered arm.

Santana followed them, walking a little apart, frowning now. Rachel wasn't the only headstrong Lopez girl. She wasn't going to let her father railroad her into a marriage she didn't want. As much as she loved her sister, she didn't want anything to do with the kind of men she was trying to attract.

Mama had been a real partner to her father. Though she had been small-boned and pretty, she had still ridden the fences and helped with branding and stayed up all night at calving time. Rachel may have looked like their mother, but Santana had her personality, which her father commented on more than once so far in her short life. Santana knew her father had been a little ashamed of her, with her striding walk and her unfrilled dresses and sun-pinkened face. But she had been exactly the kind of spouse Santana wanted to have one day. She didn't want a glass-house orchid. She wanted a field poppy—someone who would work alongside her and love her as she was, not as she 'ought' to be.

"I really don't think I'll find the kind of suitor who will charm me at the Palace," Santana mumbled, not intending for her father to hear—but hear he did, and he answered—with a single, clipped word.

"Nonsense."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has alerted, etc, this story! I'm glad some people are liking it. :) Also, I wanted to thank wkgreen and dagleek for their reviews, since, you know, I can't reply to anonymous reviews. I appreciate you guys taking the time to tell me what you think. :)**

**Anyway, so, here's another chapter. School is insane for me, especially right now, and I wasn't planning to update until finals were over next week, but I just said, screw it, and took a break from writing yet another paper to write this. Not that you guys care about my personal life or anything, lol. Just thought I'd share. ;) **

**Well, anyway, enjoy!**

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><p>Mrs. Sylvester stopped to catch her breath. Although she loathed admitting it, going up to the third floor was getting to be a real chore. Her bones ached. This weather was enough to make a cripple out of anyone old enough to have lost both a husband and a son in the War Between the States.<p>

Glancing back down the stairs, she leaned back against the handrail. This old boardinghouse was getting to be too much for her to handle, and she knew it. She grimaced. The boarders were her only source of income.

"Should have gotten married again," she muttered to herself as she pushed herself off the banister and started upward again, heavy-footed and slow. "Should have taken up with that fool Rod Remington, like Daddy wanted me to do."

She clomped up another step, and then one more, still talking to herself. "He was a miserable tyrant of a man, though. Andrea Carmichael found that out soon enough after she married the old—"

"Good morning, Mrs. Sylvester!"

The bright, young voice startled Mrs. Sylvester, and she had to grip the railing to keep from stumbling. She glared up the stairs at Brittany. The girl was always to damnably cheerful. "Good morning, Brittany," she said aloud.

The girl looked very pretty this morning, as usual. Her golden hair was woven and wound into a halo of braids, shining and clean. "I apologize if I alarmed you, Mrs. Sylvester," she was saying.

Mrs. Sylvester nodded, pausing again. Her right knee was throbbing in time with her heart. It was swollen again, who knew why? Gout didn't start in the knees, she was fairly certain.

"Is everything alright?" Brittany asked, noticing Mrs. Sylvester's discomfort. Her peaches-and-cream skin was even prettier when it was chilly.

Mrs. Sylvester sighed, gripping the handrail in order to take part of her weight off of her knee. Never one to complain outwardly to others or show weakness, Mrs. Sylvester simply ground out, "I was coming to see to the dusting."

Brittany was looking into her eyes as though she was trying to divine her thoughts—it was most discomfiting, this direct stare the girl had. But she was unfailingly kind, and honest—and helpful. The house was certainly brighter and just on the whole _better_ since she had moved in two years before.

"If it will wait until I get home today," Brittany said as she smiled warmly, "I'll be happy to do it then."

Thankful, Mrs. Sylvester nodded. "That would be a help." She watched as Brittany pattered past, thundering down the stairs like a ten-year-old boy, jumping the last three at the landing. If the girl didn't marry well enough, or didn't marry at all, perhaps they could work out some sort of an arrangement so that Brittany could manage the place in trade for her rent and board.

Mrs. Sylvester listened to Brittany's thumping footsteps as she ran across the parlor. Brittany was very pretty, but she was like a colt, not a young lady. Perhaps the men with real prospects would pass her by, seeing her lack of refinement. The kind of poverty that Brittany came from left coarse, lasting scars that no man of wealth wanted in a wife. If she married a brick mason or a hotel bellman, or some such fellow, he would see the value in not paying any rent, Mrs. Sylvester was sure. It could all work to the advantage of everyone.

The front door opened, the bell on the door jangling, as Brittany rushed out. _I wonder what has her so excited this morning,_ Mrs. Sylvester thought. _Whatever it is, it must be good._ Brittany was usually cheerful, but this skip-hop exuberance was different. Maybe she had already met the bricklayer she would wed and was meeting him on the corner. Mrs. Sylvester allowed herself a small, nearly indiscernible smile at the thought as she turned slowly on the stairs and started downward, leaning heavily on the handrail.

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><p>Brittany shivered as she turned up Decatur Street. It was short—barely a block long. Brittany got to the corner quickly, walking fast through the swirling fog. She ducked her head without slowing down her stride.<p>

Saloons and boardinghouses lined Bryant Street, interspersed with groceries and watchmakers and stationers. Most of the businesses were small and had rooms to let above the shops. Nothing was open yet, and the saloon swampers were leaving to go home, their night's mopping and cleaning finished. As she passed by the saloons, Brittany could see the gaslights inside still burning, for the bartenders and grill cooks who would soon be there to serve the earliest of the day's customers.

Brittany heard voices behind her as she neared Sixth Street. She was never alone on the sidewalks at this hour. There were bakery boys, and newspaper boys, and women who cleaned houses up on Nob Hill. There were reporters sometimes, too, the younger ones living in the boardinghouses down here on their slim salaries. Some of them were fairly handsome, and a few had been kind and talked to Brittany on her way to work a time or two.

A man on the streetcar had asked Brittany to dinner a few weeks before. But he had frightened her with his intense talk about the railroads buying votes, about how the money-men were running the city—and about how they should all be taken down a peg or two. His world seemed dangerous and angry, and Brittany had not wanted to spend any more time around him. So, she had politely refused.

Danger and fear were all too familiar. Two long years she had roamed the docks after she'd turned ten and had to leave St. Luke's, scrabbling for food with other forgotten children. It had seemed an eternity before she met old Paddy and been transported to the safe haven of Ingleside Racetrack's quiet stables.

St. Mary's bells began to toll in the distance, muted like every other sound this morning. Then the clock chimed again, snapping Brittany out of her thoughts. It was five o'clock. She _was_ a little behind her usual schedule. "Too much daydreaming," she chided herself aloud, and lengthened her step.

Turning left onto Sixth Street, Brittany's shoe heel skidded across the wet sidewalk, but she managed to catch her balance before she went tumbling down. Turning sideways to raise her skirt in order to step off the high curb, she heard voices again. This time, she saw a shadowy group of men materialize out of the fog. They passed her tipping their hats, and then disappeared into the dense mist again halfway across the street. They were all carrying thick black cases with straps and big nickel-plate buckles fastened tightly. The scent of their toilet water lingered in the cool air behind them.

Those men were sales agents, Brittany was sure. The cases held samples of who-knew-what? Maybe fountain and stylographic pens and ink pots, or stereropticons with three-dimensional views of London and Niagara Falls, or perfumes or health elixirs or suspenders. The men would make their rounds, stopping at the dry goods and stationers stores—maybe even The Emporium or The White House or some other big department stores up around Union Square.

Another block up Sixth Street, Brittany had to half-turn and step off the curb again. The wire ribs of her corset dug painfully into the small of her back as she crossed Harrison. She let her skirt fall back to cover her ankles and sighed. It wasn't a real corset—not a kind that gave a woman the incredibly graceful arched back that the magazines called the Grecian Bend. But she couldn't afford a corset like that—and even if she had, she wouldn't have been able to wear it work at the Palace. How would she have made a bed or scrubbed a floor?

Mrs. Sylvester thought all corsets were terrible for a woman's body; after all, they were originally designed by a _man_—what would a man know about a woman's body? Everything she said made sense. Brittany, as well as every other woman she knew, treasured the moment at night when she could undo the laces and unfasten the hooks and eyes and take her corset off. But still…Brittany quickened her pace again, sighing. So many of the women who stayed at the Palace Hotel were beautiful, like rare roses with slender stems. Oh, how she wanted, just once, to look as beautiful as they did.

A delivery wagon passed, the horses' shoes striking like muffled bells on the cobblestones. Brittany smelled the warm aroma of fresh bread pouring from an open door. The city was waking up now, the sidewalks were filling. Brittany heard more people's voices now and then in the fog. It was not clearing. If anything, it was getting thicker.

Brittany was glad she always braided her hair and pinned it up. This fog would have made it positively a sight if she hadn't. Arthur said he liked it like this, even though it was an old-fashioned style her mother had worn long ago. Brittany let a smile break free on her face. Arthur made her feel beautiful, and he _did _act like he cared for her.

Brittany longed to be able to really talk with him. She had to be so careful whenever she saw him, making sure that if Mrs. Beiste was coming down the hall she could instantly appear as though she was getting something from her cart and just answering a guest's casual remark in the course of her work.

"Excuse me, Miss," a man said behind her. Brittany caught her breath, startled when he materialized out of the fog. Then she felt foolish. A lot of people lived south of The Slot and worked up along Market Street, or somewhere farther. Brittany knew the crowds were thickening, as people came up the side streets and joined the parade making its way toward Market Street and the streetcar lines—she just couldn't see them this morning. In another hour, it'd be difficult to get a seat. People would be hanging onto the straps and leaning outward, as the red cars rolled up to the financial district or Nob Hill.

Passing the Italian groceries that were on the corner of Howard and Sixth, Brittany could smell the sharp scent of fresh onions and basil, even though it would be another hour before the vegetables were placed out underneath the awnings to be sold.

Brittany heard the clattering roar of an automobile as she stepped off the high curb. She paused long enough to make sure that the sound was fading before she started to hurry her way across the street—she had heard of too many unfortunate souls who have been run over by an automobile as they were trying to cross a street. Two Chinese men passed her, almost running with the peculiar, gliding stride that always amazed Brittany. They were talking to each other and seemed not to notice her at all.

There were shouts off to Brittany's left as she got back onto the sidewalk, then a resounding crash and the whinny of a frightened horse. More shouts followed. Glancing back, Brittany hoped the poor horse was not harmed—or either of the drivers. Horses got so terrified of the automobiles, and there were more and more of them in the city now. Rich men's toys, Arthur said. He didn't believe that the autos would be around in ten years, except in museums. Brittany disagreed—but she didn't say so.

Arthur had very strong opinions, and the very last thing Brittany wanted was to upset him. So, she kept her disagreeing opinions to herself. If the autos were still in use ten years hence, she would gently remind him how he had so vehemently predicted otherwise, and they would have a little laugh together.

"Mrs. Arthur Abrams," Brittany whispered to herself, and then covered her mouth with her hand. It was probably bad luck to say it out loud. Mama had always warned against bad luck. Papa hadn't believed in anything except work and God. Brittany's eyes flooded, but she blinked back the tears. Even after twelve years, even though sometimes she felt as though she couldn't remember what her parents looked like anymore, she missed them terribly.

The streetcar bell was already ringing as Brittany rounded the corner. She picked up her skirt to run, taking careful, measured steps to avoid slipping on the sidewalk. As she hesitated on the edge of the sidewalk, a man stepped out of the mist and offered her his arm. She murmured her thanks and let him steady her as she crossed the cobblestones. The streetcar was braking to a halt, the bell ringing madly now.

"Thank you so much," Brittany said breathlessly as the man courteously helped her into the car. He released her elbow, smiled, and then directed his attention elsewhere, thankfully relieving her of the need to make polite conversation. Being friendly wasn't an issue for Brittany, but talking with strangers was. She always ended up feeling awkward and saying something foolish. Brittany presented her transfer ticket for punching, and then turned to find an empty seat as the conductor waved her toward the rear of the car.

"A pretty thing like you should have an escort," a dapper-looking man in the first row of seats commented as she made her way past. Brittany pretended not to hear him. Men often said something like that to her. But what was she supposed to do? Her parents were no longer living, and she had no brothers or beau.

Quinn and Terry, two of the girls Brittany worked with, had shuddered when she told them that she lived alone. Her landlady didn't like it either. But Mrs. Sylvester was a long-time widow, so at least she understood that some things were forced on a person, not chosen. She had lost her husband and son in the War, long before Brittany had even been born, and she had lived alone ever since—except for her tenants, of course.

Brittany slipped into a seat halfway back and smoothed her skirt. The man who had helped her cross the street went past, nodding politely once more. He looked about forty, Brittany thought. Old enough to be her father. And he had a very kind face. She watched him seat himself near the very end of the car, arranging his gloves and cane, and then resettling his hat as the streetcar lurched into motion.

Brittany tried to imagine her own father's face. He had never had soft leather gloves, or a cane for that matter. He had been a mason. He had laid brick all of his life, proud of the calluses on his hands and the mortar sand under his nails.

Brittany watched the Tubbington Building glide past, and then the Spreckles Building. Both looked enormously dark and dreary, their stone stained with the fog's chill and wetness. The Academy of Sciences looked just as bleak as it appeared out of the fog, short and squat next to the enormous Ucalegon Building looming beside it. The car stopped and passengers came down the aisle.

"May I?"

"Of course." Brittany gathered up her skirt once more as a gentleman sat beside her. His suit was respectable, if a little shabby. He pulled off his hat and wiped his sleeve across his domed brow, and then replaced his hat. He stared ahead again as the car started up again in tiny lurches. Brittany kept her eyes straight ahead as well. No one was saying much this morning. Everyone seemed distant, each person insulated from the other by the dense fog. Even the conductor's shouts and the ringing of the silver bell seemed dulled.

Brittany ducked her head to look out from under the canopy as they passed the Wilusa Building across the street. So many of the buildings were named after the men who had built them. Would there ever be an Abrams Building? Brittany blushed at the thought as the car stopped, brakes screeching, at the corner of Market and Fourth. When it jigged back into motion, the shabby man was gone, and an older woman had taken his place. Her clothes were beautifully hand sewn. The fabric of her dress was Moiré silk, with water patterns that made it almost iridescent.

"Whatever are you staring at, Miss?" she said sharply.

"I apologize," Brittany immediately replied, startled and embarrassed by the woman's irritation, swallowing the compliment that had been on the tip of her tongue. She blushed again and looked straight forward. The Luka Building was on the right now, its upper stories disappearing into the fog.

"I'm a modiste," the woman said haughtily as the car stopped and Brittany stood up to get out. "If your mistress needs a dressmaker, you may tell her Mildred Antony of Van Ness and Fulton Streets is available to design and sew for women of quality."

Brittany mumbled something polite and made her way down the aisle between the seats. Her feet were cold. The car steps were slick with condensed fog. As she stepped down onto the cobblestones, a horse-drawn carriage passed just behind her going the other way. The horses' hooves made a hollow clopping rhythm as the driver whipped them up. It was a fine team, Brittany saw, long-legged with finely sprung ribs and deep chests—almost blooded enough for the racetrack.

The horses shook their manes and lashed their fog-sodden tails, their ears flattened against their heads. The driver was pushing them dangerously fast, and the horses seemed to resent it. Brittany watched, disapproving. If a child or an elderly person were to step out into the street at the wrong time, something disastrous could happen.

The streetcar bell rang its high silvery note again and rolled forward as Brittany walked across the street, looking both ways. Stepping back up onto the sidewalk, she saw misty figures walking in and out of the grand double-doored Market Street entrance of the Palace Hotel. There were shops all along the ground floor on this side, but none of them were open yet. Brittany was about to turn toward Third Street—housekeepers were only allowed to enter from the Mission Street entrance—when a familiar silhouette caught her eye and she halted. Arthur.

From where she stood, it was impossible for Brittany to see the shining brown of his hair or the tiny scar that marred his left cheek, but she could imagine every detail of his face perfectly. She had longed to ask him about the scar. Maybe it was from some boyhood exploit gone wrong. Or maybe it was something far more exciting than that. He had been to Europe, she knew that much. He had told her a little about his travels in France and Italy.

Arthur turned, facing away from her, his outline muted and blunt, like a watercolor painting. Invisible in the fog, an automobile roared past, the clattering din lasting longer than usual. The driver was no doubt driving cautiously this morning. Brittany stood still. Arthur was pulling out his watch, checking the time. Abruptly, he started off in the opposite direction. In just a few strides, the fog came between them and he disappeared.

_Oh. He has forgotten, obviously,_ Brittany thought, her eyes stinging. _Or perhaps some very important business had come up at the last minute and he didn't have time to wait and tell me. Yes, that was probably all it was, _she tried to convince herself as she felt her sense of expectation seep away. In its place was the clammy cold of the fog that filled the street. She began to walk very slowly toward the side entrance, blinking back tears.

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><p>Mrs. Beiste put her hands on her hips. Her back hurt. She had slept badly again, tossing and turning and wishing she had a little laudanum left to ease the pain. She was going to have to start keeping it on hand.<p>

She glanced down the hall. It was almost six o'clock. Twenty-four of her twenty-five girls were here and already tying on their aprons and arranging stacks of linen on their pushcarts. Mrs. Beiste caught Miss Motta's eye and tapped her temple. Motta reached up to tuck the stray wisp of hair back into place.

Mrs. Beiste checked the clock on the wall, and then looked down the long hall with its spotless linoleum floor. The overhead electric bulbs were painfully bright. She blinked. "Damn that girl! Where is Miss Pierce?"

"Mrs. Beiste," a soft, musical voice said from behind her. "I think Brittany told me to tell you that she might be a little late this morning."

Mrs. Beiste gave up looking down the hallway and turned stiffly to face the pale girl with her sharp hazel eyes. "What, Miss Fabray?"

"I said that I think that Brittany told me that she'd be late today."

Mrs. Beiste stiffened, amazed afresh at how foolish these girls nowadays were. This one was always talking about other people's troubles in her soft, husky voice. Perhaps she had no troubles of her own to keep her busy yet. Mrs. Beiste shook her head. "Quinn, why would I believe that? Wouldn't Brittany have told me herself?"

Quinn had the good grace to blush, though she kept her gaze level. "I wouldn't know that Ma'am, but she said that-"

"Horsefeathers," Mrs. Beiste muttered, cutting her off. "Miss Fabray, you are a horrible liar. And it is not a skill a young lady should _try_ to acquire, do you think?"

Quinn was bright red now. The rose patches on her cheeks looked hot enough to burn. The clock began to strike, and Mrs. Beiste turned to look down the hallway again.

On the third strike, the lift doors at the end of the corridor opened, and Miss Pierce tumbled out, coming down the hall at a half-run, skirts flying, eyes red as though she had been weeping.

"Slow down!" Mrs. Beiste called to her, and the awkward girl stumbled to a fast walk, patting at the mass of silly old-fashioned braids she seemed to favor. "Get your cap on," Mrs. Beiste said sternly.

Miss Pierce actually squeaked when she realized what she had forgotten. She thrust her hands in her coat pockets to fish out her white maid's cap. Settling it on her hair, she slowed, and then stopped. "I'm so sorry that I'm late," she began.

"Oh, but you weren't," Miss Fabray spoke up, interrupting her. "Not quite. I mean, the clock was still striking and—"

"Miss Fabray—" Mrs. Beiste scolded.

"It's alright, Quinn," Miss Pierce said swiftly. "I was almost late and—"

"But only almost," Miss Fabray whispered in that matter-of-fact way of hers. "You made it before the third strike—"

"Enough, girls!" Mrs. Beiste interrupted, no longer able to listen to another silly word. She pressed her hands against the small of her back. "Get your lists."

"I suppose we have enough to do beyond scolding nice girls?" someone asked.

Mrs. Beiste scanned the faces, trying to decide who had spoken. She really wanted someone to blame for such insolence, and she was pretty sure it had been Mercedes Jones, one of the older women. But all of the faces—thin, full, young, middle-aged, plain, and pretty—were expressionless and opaque. Every single housekeeper in the line was seemingly absorbed in some tiny task, like flicking lint from her uniform or straightening her cap. The older women stared at the floor or the far wall, patient and silent. Mercedes looked at her fingernails, and then half turned so as to hide her expression.

Narrowing her eyes, Mrs. Beiste cleared her throat. "Front desk says we have over three hundred and fifty checkouts today."

Everyone made a little sighing sound, and Mrs. Beiste glared at them. It was ridiculous. Did they expect to get paid without working for their money? The young people of the country were falling apart, getting soft and lazy and just _worse_.

Mrs. Beiste stood at her post against the wall as the housekeepers shuffled through their preparation, checking their carts for rags, lemon-oil polish, lye soap, and ammonia. Miss Pierce went down the hall to a storeroom and came back carrying a box of bars of perfumed soap that were left in every bathroom every day. She filled her basket, and then handed the box on up the line.

"Are we ready?" Mrs. Beiste said just loudly enough to startle the girls. There was a shuffling of feet, but no one spoke.

"The second shift will take most of the stock and service numbers today. We get the cleanouts." This time there was a murmur that ended when she frowned. She pressed at the small of her back again, waiting for one of them to be unwise enough to complain aloud. But there was no sound at all. It was as though they were all holding their breath.

She pulled down her noteboard and began handing out her lists, ticking off each girl's name as the carts wheeled past. She heard the washing machines start up in the big room down the hall. The kitchens would be coming to life soon one floor up. The hotel was waking up. Mrs. Beiste lifted her shoulders and rounded her back trying to ease the pain, readying herself for another long day.

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><p><strong>AN: If any of you are wondering when Brittany and Sant****ana are going to meet...soon. They can't meet if neither of them is at the Palace, now can they? ;) Patience, oh grasshoppers...good things come to those who wait. Yay for cliched nuggets of wisdom! ;) Anyway, I hope this chapter was enjoyable! **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Hey guys! Thanks, again, for the alerts and reviews and all that! Anyway, this is a little shorter than I expected it to be, but...Oh, well. That's just what happens sometimes. :) **

**Oh, and I most likely will not be updating again before Christmas, what with all the last minute shopping, cookie baking, wrapping, and general festive activities I need to do in the next couple days, so...Merry Christmas! :D If you don't celebrate, then ignore that. If you are of another faith, such as Jewish, then I wish you all the appropriate holiday well-wishes. I only know of Hanukkah (which started yesterday, right?) and Kwanzaa, so...yeah. Please forgive my ignorance. :)**

**ANYway, I'm going to shut up now. Please enjoy the chapter! And, you know the drill, review if you want, don't if you don't...blah, blah. ;)**

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><p>Rachel bounced off the ferry and waited for her father and sister to catch up, before crossing to the line of carriages for hire waiting along the curb in front of the clock tower. She was positively glowing with excitement. "This is going to be so much more exciting than living on the ranch!" she whispered into the fog, nearly bouncing in anticipation. Then she glanced back. Papa and Santana had their heads together again; they were talking money, she was sure of it. Money and cows were all they ever talked about. Or politics, but that almost always ended in a shouting match, which Papa always won. Even though she had no interest in the things they talked about, sometimes Rachel envied Santana's relationship with their father; at least he didn't treat <em>her<em> like she couldn't cross the street without help.

Rachel swirled her skirts, holding them just a few inches above the graveled drive, as she waited for her family. She shrugged her shoulders, settling the band of steel running down the middle of her spine into a more comfortable position. She stood with her hips tipped forward—it was the only way the band of metal in her corset would allow her to stand.

"May I help you, miss?" one of the drivers called. She could tell by his grin that he thought she was pretty, and she smiled at him—a quick, innocent smile that Papa wouldn't see or be able to fault even if he had.

"My father and sister are a bit slow this morning," Rachel called back to the driver.

"Rachel?" Papa said sternly from behind her. "Behave yourself."

"Yes, Papa," she said, remembering too late about the intimacy and privacy needed for addressing one's father as "Papa." It was absolutely inappropriate in public.

Rachel held her tongue while her father chose another carriage—one with a sullen, polite driver who opened the door without looking directly at any of them. Without so much as a trace of a smile, he offered his arm and helped her climb up, leaning away so that no part of her skirts so much as brushed the toes of his well-blackened boots.

Rachel stepped up into the carriage and bent to sit carefully on the edge of the upholstered seat. It looked like an automobile seat, she noticed—all the rage the last few years. This driver's company had put serious money into making their carriages fashionable and new. Without a single glance, the driver turned and closed the door.

Papa and Santana were back to their cow talk, Rachel noted as she settled her skirt and looked out the carriage window. There was nothing to see, just acres and miles and eternities of fog—but she knew what was out there.

The whole, wide wonderful city of San Francisco was just sitting there, waiting for Rachel. There would be parties and dances and plays and entertainments. Rachel glanced at her sister, and she smiled back at her. She sent Santana an answering grin, which earned her a frown from her father, and she ducked her head, hiding her face until she could present a demure visage once again. She felt the carriage rock as the driver climbed up to his high seat. Papa leaned out the window and called out just two words to the driver.

"The Palace!"

"Yessir!" the driver responded, and the whip cracked in three sharp little pops over the horses' backs. The wheels turned as the team started off, steel tire rims grinding on the gravel as the driver guided the horses up out of the Embarcadero lot and onto the wide cobbled surface of Market Street. Out on the bay a foghorn sounded, a sad, lonely sound that mad Rachel shiver.

"Are you chilled?" Papa asked, and she realized that he had been watching her even while he spoke to Santana.

She shook her head with a smile. "Just excited."

He smiled at her and she found herself beaming at him again, a smile too wide and too freely given to be ladylike. She tried to contain herself, but the truth was she was too keyed up. She could barely wait to get her first invitation to a ballroom dance. Surely someone they met would include her on a guest list? She was so afraid that no one would. She knew she wasn't bad-looking, and if she was careful to remember everything she had been taught by her tutors, she could behave like a proper lady, too—part of the hoi polloi, as Papa would say. All she wanted was for someone to give her a chance.

On the sidewalks a steady a steady parade of people walked silently, none of them talking or laughing. Rachel watched them as they appeared out of the fog, and then disappeared just as quickly as the hack passed on. Most of them were wearing work clothes of some kind. The flocks of banker and brokers in their black suits and two-inch collars and careful, muted ties would not be out until later.

Rachel watched the grand facades of the buildings in the financial district as they slid past. This was the only part of the city Rachel was familiar with at all. Coming to town with Papa always meant visits to two different banks, a stop-in at the Olympic Club, and a quick run up to Union Square to shop for a dress or to the Emporium with its elevators and genteel, quiet-voiced clerks.

Rachel refolded her hands and lifted her chin trying to still her nervous excitement. Her corset was laced so tightly she would begin to feel faint or ill if she wasn't careful. For a full minute, she forced herself to simply look out the window, but her excitement kept nudging at her thoughts until she finally let it burst back through, helpless to contain it any longer.

Three times since her fourteenth birthday—once each year—her father had taken her and Santana to the Palace Grill for supper. Every time, Rachel had watched the other guests, fascinated. The women amazed her. Their hats were magnificent. Their hair was always dressed in the latest fashions. The rustle of their gowns had made her feel like child transported to a fairyland of silk and perfume. The men had frightened her a little with their imperious jocularity, the seeming certainty that whatever they asked for they would get—without ever having to so much as raise their voices. The first time it had taken her half the ride home to realize that the food had been absolutely divine, too.

Suddenly, the great walls studded with brass disks came into sight. Rachel tilted her head to look upward. The first two tiers of bay windows were visible—they were the trademark of the Palace—each room came with a marvelous view of the city. She glanced at her father, and wondered how long he and Santana had been sitting silently. They looked tense. Rachel folded her hands in her lap.

"Our trunks should already be in the rooms," Papa said, touching her elbow and gesturing upward. She nodded.

"Let's get on with it, then," Santana said. There was a decided tenseness in her voice.

Papa straightened. "Don't rush your sister. She is excited about all of this."

Santana nodded curtly and stepped down, as the driver opened the carriage door. Papa went next, offering his arm so Rachel could descend the steps. She lifted her skirt and looked down to make sure she stepped squarely onto the carriage steps. Head high, mincing so that her skirts swayed, Rachel let her father help her up onto the high curb. The ornate gas lamps on the sidewalk were still burning, making a triad of rose-amber globes of light in the mist.

As her father and sister stood side by side waiting for the driver, Rachel took a single step into the fog. It was so thick, so like goose down this morning. Without warning, a young man materialized out of the dense mist and Rachel took a quick step backward and stumbled. Snake-quick, his hand shot out and grabbed her arm before she could fall.

"I am so very sorry," he said in a polite voice.

Rachel looked up into his handsome face, and when he smiled, she found herself smiling back at him.

"You just appeared, sir!"

His smile broadened. "You are the apparition, not I. And a lovely one at that."

Rachel felt herself blush as he bowed, stepped back, and tipped his hat, then strode past, nodding politely. He touched his hat once more as he walked by Papa and Santana. Then he was gone. Breathless, Rachel turned to see another carriage slant into the curb. The driver had barely stopped when two men got out talking in rapid-fire French. Rachel could only try look serene as they walked by her, completely absorbed in their discussion.

"Rachel? Are you ready to go in?" Papa asked.

She spun around to face him, "Oh, yes!"

He laughed, and then turned to Santana. "One of use is excited at least. Shall we?"

Rachel made a face at Santana as they passed him, and she made one back. Then, perfectly genteel, she accompanied her father and sister into the grand lobby of the Palace Hotel. It was as wonderful as she had remembered it. She swept across the thick carpeting, gazing up at the crystal chandeliers hanging from the high, ornate ceiling.

* * *

><p>Santana followed her father and sister through the maze of potted palms to the concierge's counter, and then on to the elevator. The doors closed soundlessly, and then there was a faint hissing noise as the operator pulled the lever and the cage rose smoothly upward.<p>

When the doors opened, the operator stepped out and looked down the hall. "Fourth floor, sir. And there is a porter here to assist you."

Santana stepped out just behind Rachel. A uniformed porter was hurrying toward them.

"Do you have luggage, sir?" he asked as he got closer.

Santana waited as her father explained that their trunks should already be in their rooms. The porter half-bowed and graciously extended one arm, indicating that they should go before him. Rachel took Papa's arm, a silly smile fixed on her mouth. Santana wondered if it would ever leave her face the entire time they were here.

"And here were are, sir and misses, here we are…" The porter took the key from Papa and Santana watched him open the door, which she noticed had a gold plate "445" in the center toward the top, pushing it back to reveal the room. Santana could see her father's belongings stacked against a wall, but the pile looked too small. Then she realized that the two biggest trunks, as well as her own, slightly smaller one, were missing: her and Rachel's clothes.

"My daughters' room adjoins this one?" Papa said, his voice rising just enough at the end to make it a question.

"That would be 446. Yes, sir."

Santana watched the porter half-bow again, a practiced little motion.

"You two get settled," Papa said as the porter left. "I'm going to go down and talk to the front desk about staying another month."

"We just got here, Papa," Santana said, astounded.

"Santana, I am simply going to make the reservation. We can change our minds if need be. Is that all right with you?"

Santana stared at her father. Papa was angry. Really angry. At what? As she watched her father stalk back down the hall, Santana shook her head.

"Come on," Rachel said, pulling at her arm. Santana let her sister lead her back into the room. She shut the door behind them.

The room was big, Santana observed—or at least it wasn't small. There were two beds, a low couch with dark wood and pearl gray upholstery, and wardrobes along the back wall. The window was large. She could see the milky outlines of the buildings across the street. The fog was finally thinning a little.

"Oh, look!" Rachel squealed, sounding like a little girl who had found a piece of cake in the cupboard. Santana smiled. It was hard to resist her high spirits.

Rachel was pulling her into the bathroom. "Look, Santana, look!"

She stared at the bathtub. It was bigger than any she had ever seen. And the faucet handles were as shiny as silver.

"It's long enough to stretch out in," Rachel whispered in awe.

Santana nodded, smiling. It really was.

"And look at the mirrors!"

Santana turned to follow her gesture. The mirrors were long enough to show her a full-length view of her pretty sister, and behind her, herself. She looked dour and unhappy, like she was worried about something grave.

"Does our room have one like this?" Rachel asked her, staring at her, her dark brown eyes wide in curiosity.

Santana shook her head, helpless in the face of her sister's breathless questioning. "How would I know, Rachel?"

"Let's go _look_, Santana!" Rachel took her hand and pulled her to the adjoining door. It was unlocked, and she pushed it wide open. Unable to pull her along fast enough, Rachel released her hand and rand through their bedchamber in ten quick strides. Her giggles told Santana that their bath was as deep and long as the one in the first bathroom.

"Oh, Santana, isn't it wonderful?" she demanded, coming back out into the bedchamber.

"It is splendid," Santana agreed. She glanced out the window again. There was a faint knocking sound from the room on the other side of theirs. It was barely audible, but it reminded her that each of the many doors on this hall had people behind it. The idea made her feel a little odd. She was going to be living in a building that held more people on a single floor than every home, cabin, bunkhouse, and shack on their ranch.

"I am going to take a bath," Rachel said from behind her. She nudged her older sister back through the door. "Stay out for an hour or two. Tell Papa."

Instead of telling her sister that it was her room too and she had every right to be there, whether Rachel was bathing or not, as she normally would have, Santana simply nodded absently at her. She was too preoccupied trying to calculate in her head. There were probably six or seven hundred rooms. Maybe more like eight. If there were just two people in each of them…

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. She went to open it, expecting to see her father or the porter. She fumbled with the lock release. A feminine void said something form out in the hallway, but she couldn't make out the exact words through the heavy wooden door.

"Just a moment," she said loudly.

"Yes, ma'am," came the faint response.

Santana finally managed to open the door, pulling it toward herself slowly. She saw a starched white uniform and the edge of an apron, and understood instantly what the woman had been trying to ask her.

"We've just now arrived," she began, "so we really don't need anything at…"

She trailed off, unable to continue for an instant. The girl on the other side of the door was so beautiful that her ocean blue eyes and golden hair left her momentarily without words. Suddenly realizing she was staring into the most beautiful person she's ever seen's eyes with her jaw slacked, Santana straightened and opened her mouth to say something, _anything_, so the girl wouldn't leave yet.

"Santana?" The sharp question startled Santana out of the trance the pretty maid had her in. It was Papa, standing awkwardly on the other side of the girl's pushcart. He tapped at the linens impatiently. "Miss, could you please move this contraption?"

"Oh, yes, sir," she said apologetically, glancing once at Santana, then at the cart as she pulled it out of Papa's way.

"Thank you, Miss," Santana said, hoping that she would look up, that she would get to see her deep blue eyes again, but she didn't. She turned and pulled the cart down the hallway, looking down at a list of room numbers as she went. Her blonde hair was pinned up in a mass of intertwining braids. Santana could see wisps of it working loose at the nape of her neck, and she was startled when she found herself wondering what it would look like free and flowing down her back, but she quickly shook off the thought.

"Well, I made the reservations," Papa was saying, and Santana turned to face him.

"Don't worry, Santana," Papa said. "You'll get used to city life and then you won't want to go back out to the ranch. I'll make a society woman out of you yet!"

Santana nodded vaguely, and then stepped out into the hallway, pretending to look at a painting hung on the opposite wall. The girl's cart was only a few doors down, but she couldn't see her now.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Happy 2012, readers! First, as always, I must say thanks to the reviewers. :) **

_**dagleek:**_** You're welcome. :) Thank _you_ for reading. :)**

_**wkgreen:**_** Mayyybe, mayyybe not. Maybe Santana won't even mention anything to her father. Who knows? ;)**

_**JustAStrangerPassingBy: **_**I usually respond to users' comments in a PM or whatever, buuuut, the festivities of Christmas and New Years distracted me, so...I'm doing it here. Not that you really care or anything. I'm just saying. :) Anyway, haha, I know, right? The Palace is THE place to stay in San Francisco, so it's got to be awesome. ;) Aw, I know, Rachel's adorable. We get some more of her in this chapter too, so yay! Hehe, she is indeed. The question is, does _she_ know it? And for that matter, what about Brittany? Time will tell...mwahahahaaa! ;)**

**Okay, then, on to the chapter! Some parts I'm not too sure about, but who knows. *shrugs* I hope you guys enjoy it! :)**

* * *

><p>The next morning, Brittany was walking back down the second floor hall from the linen closet when Arthur came out of his room. She was surprised. He was hardly ever up this early in the morning. Usually she had to wait until at least ten to make up his bed. He smiled, as he always did, when he saw her.<p>

"Good morning," he called out jovially. She answered him and his smile broadened. "And how are you today?" he cheerfully asked as he walked toward her.

Brittany blushed. He obviously didn't remember that he had asked her to meet with him before work the day before. And if Mrs. Beiste caught her talking to him in the hallway, it could cost her her job.

Brittany slowed her step, but he strode straight toward her, not stopping until he was close enough to look into her deep blue eyes, his handsome face serious and intent. Her heart leapt.

"I wanted to ask you where you live," he said, not bothering to ease into the topic.

Brittany blinked, startled by the question._ Why would he need my address?_ If Arthur noticed her reaction, he ignored it.

"I have a cousin coming into town from Baltimore," he told her, and then dropped his voice confidingly. "That whole side of the family is too stubborn to accept any help from me. But I thought that if I could find her a sensible, decent place…"

"Well, it isn't fancy or—"

"She will be working as a clerk. Her father passed away when she was young and…" Arthur trailed off, his eyes becoming dark and sad.

Brittany recited the address and watched as he pulled out a small, leather-bound book from his pocket and flipped through it to find a blank page. He jotted down the address with deft, quick strokes of his pencil, and then looked up.

"Thank you so much, Brittany." His voice was warm and his eyes lingered on hers. Brittany held the clean towels she was carrying to her chest and waited with bated breath for him to say something else. But he didn't. Instead, he winked at her and grinned, and then stepped around her, whistling as he started down the hall towards the elevators.

Brittany watched him go and tried to push her hurt feelings aside as she walked on down the long hall. _He meant nothing by it. Nothing at all,_ she told herself over and over. _He is a businessman, preoccupied with his own affairs. He is fond of me; I could not have imagined that. _But, apparently she had overestimated the depth of his feeling…Perhaps they would grow in time, if only she waited a while longer.

She stacked the towels on her cart, still thinking furiously. If his cousin did move into Mrs. Sylvester's building, maybe they would become friends. That might well allow her to spend more time with Arthur. She would make him a good wife, she just knew it. She sighed. _If only he would realize it._ Sighing again, Brittany forced herself to put her mind back on her work. Her mother had been right. Daydreaming was a waste of time.

Three rooms and a mountain of dirty sheets later, Brittany filled her laundry bag, left her cart, and started toward the service elevator to take the sheets and towels to be washed so she could start on the next floor. On the way down the hall, Brittany allowed her thoughts to drift to Arthur again, her eyes filling with tears.

* * *

><p>Santana had been dressed for an hour before Rachel finally rose. While they waited, Papa read the <em>Chronicle<em> by the big bay window. By the time Rachel was finally bathed and had her hair and hat on to suit her, Papa had read the newspaper twice front to back and Santana was about to wear a path in the carpet.

AS they walked down the hallway, Santana's stomach rumbled with urgency. On the ranch, she would have eaten breakfast two hours before and be well into the morning's work. Papa rang the bell for the elevator. A moment later the doors slid open, the lacy grillwork folding like a Chinese fan. The elevator attendant touched his cap.

"Lobby, please," Santana said as they got in.

The doors closed soundlessly. Santana glanced at her sister. She was positively glowing. Papa looked bored but content enough. The elevator slowed, and Santana took a half-step forward before she realized that they had stopped on the second floor.

"Lobby, please," said the elderly woman who got on, her old-fashioned gown trailing behind her.

As the doors began to close, Santana caught a glimpse of the housekeeper she had seen the day before. Watching her walk past, her head high and her spine straight, Santana fought an urge to shout at the attendant to stop the elevator. Then, at the last second, the blonde maid turned to glance through the open doors and met her eyes. She had been crying, Santana was certain of it. Her beautiful cheeks were streaked with tears. For an instant, their eyes held, and it was only after the doors closed that Santana was able to exhale.

"You all right?" Papa asked, scrutinizing her.

Santana nodded. "Just hungry."

Papa agreed, "Me, too. Not used to these late mornings."

"You sound like two old ranch hands," Rachel teased.

Papa laughed. "We are. Or one of us is anyway. The other one is still young and spry." He slapped Santana lightly on the shoulder, silently glad that at least one of his children, though a female, was so interested in the ranch and he wouldn't have to hand it over only to whoever married the girls. The elevator came to a stop again, and the doors opened onto the lobby with its massive chandeliers and palms.

* * *

><p>Rachel decided that she was going to love eating in a restaurant every morning. Santana and Papa looked bored and dull-eyed, sipping their coffee, but she felt excited over nothing.<p>

Papa was glaring out the window. The sun had come up this morning in a clear blue sky—the fog had lifted. Rachel followed her father's gaze and saw a boy on the corner, holding out a copy of the _Examiner_ at arm's length, shouting out his hawker's cry.

"I'll go buy you one, Papa," Rachel whispered.

"I already read the _Chronicle_."

"Please," she begged. "You can watch me to see that I am safe. I would love to go outside just for a moment. Please?" She glanced at Santana. For an instant, Rachel thought that she might offer to go with her, but she didn't.

"Don't dawdle," Papa cautioned. He fumbled in his vest pocket and produced a nickel.

Rachel stood and smoothed her skirt self-consciously. It was the color of a blue sky, with a shawl ruffle that spilled from her shoulders down her back. She liked the feel of the cloth swinging dramatically as she walked. It was like wearing a cape.

The lobby was almost empty. Rachel hurried across the thick carpet past the bell captain, who stood guarding a grand arrangement of trunks with silver fittings. She waited for the doorman to open the wide double doors, and then went out and stood on the sidewalk, looking almost straight up at the sky. The buildings jutted upward, shaping the endless blue like canyon walls. As she watched, a thin mist curled above the buildings; was the fog rolling back in? She hoped not. Rachel allowed herself as long a look as she dared, and then lowered her chin reluctantly and walked primly past the restaurant window to the corner.

The newsboy gave her a little half-bow and handed her the paper. His sleeve was ragged, the fraying threads hanging over his wrist. His hands were stained black with ink. Rachel wished she had thought to ask Papa for an extra dime for him.

She turned and made her way back down the sidewalk, refusing to look into the long windows, knowing that Papa would be staring back at her if she did. In front of the wide double doors, she hesitated just for a moment, drinking in a little more of the fresh air and the early sunshine. Then she lowered her head and went in, blinking at the comparative dimness of the lobby as she stepped inside.

"At your service, Miss."

Startle, Rachel looked up into the face of a young man who stood just inside the doors. He was pulling on his gloves, his deep eyes thoughtful, concerned. His hair shown brown-gold in the sun.

"I am in no difficulty, sir," Rachel said politely. "But I thank you."

"If ever you are, call upon me, please," the man said, his bespectacled eyes shining. He smiled a little before he turned and went past her, pushing open the heavy doors. Rachel stood still for a moment. It was the same man she had seen on the sidewalk the day before, she was sure. He was so incredibly handsome. So polite and kind. Knowing Papa would be irritated with her slowness, she stood still, watching thought the glass doors as the man walked away. The doorman noticed her and gestured through the glass. She nodded and he opened the door for her. She took one last look at the sky. It was hazy now. The fog was rolling back in.

* * *

><p>That afternoon, Arthur stopped in front of the boardinghouse on Decatur Street and stood looking up at the shabby façade. The fog had come back in with a vengeance, and he was grateful. It was so thick, he couldn't see more than a half dozen yards. That meant that no one would be likely to notice <em>him<em>.

A rooster crowed, somewhere behind the building. Arthur smiled, shaking his head. A regular barnyard, all right. He was only a little surprised at the disreputable appearance of the old house. Brittany had told him it was nothing to brag about. He shrugged, smiling wryly. The lovely Dutch housekeeper had a gift for understatement. It was disgusting.

A voice down the block made him look aside. Two staggering drunks were emerging from the fog, arms upon each other's shoulders. The bigger man was shouting, his words slurred and impossible to understand. Arthur heard a window bang open and a woman screamed at the man to shut up. He yelled back at her.

"What a lovely neighborhood," Arthur said to himself. "A regular Nob Hill." Whistling almost silently, he took in the squalor. The bay windows were all framed by boards with thin peels of pain hanging like ribbons down the front of the building.

Arthur looked both ways. The drunks were gone, and no one else was close enough to see in the fog. So, no one was close enough to see _him._ Moving quickly, Arthur went up the creaking porch steps and stood by the front door.

The interior of the house remained silent as Arthur eased the door open. Brittany was pleasantly chatty, and he had encouraged her. Over that first two weeks' span, she had told him all he would ever need to know about her. Her landlady was elderly and a little deaf, and lived in the apartments at the back of the first floor behind the parlor and kitchen. The two workingmen who lived in the second story back rooms were early risers and left at sunup or before every day but Sunday. The other man, who lived in the second floor's front room was ill, a barkeep with asthma who slept like the dead until noon or later. The rear rooms were unrented on the second floor; so were the front rooms on the third. There were no other boarders.

Arthur eased the door closed behind himself. Brittany was so forthright, so trusting. She really was a nice girl, and he was sorry he had deceived her a little. But it was a small deception and wouldn't hurt her in the long run, he was sure. Not if he was careful.

Arthur listened intently. There hadn't been a sound since he had stepped onto the porch. He put his hand on the door handle and opened it very slowly. In the front room was a shabby dining table, long enough to seat the entire household, he estimated.

Stepping lightly, Arthur crossed the room quickly and started up the stairs. The boards creaked beneath his weight, but not too loudly. Glancing behind himself, he kept going, his face ready to burst into a pretense of confused and drunken friendliness should anyone appear to challenge him. But no one did.

Most of the doors were unlocked. Those that weren't were easy to pick with the little steel tool he carried in his vest pocket. They had old, worn two-prong locks. The knobs were loose, the jambs uneven with age and use. He opened wrong doors twice, discovering a storeroom stacked with moth-eaten boxes and rat droppings, and a cracked commode in an unused bathroom. He started up another flight of stairs, remembering Brittany saying that she bathed at night to avoid the workingmen—the bathroom on the floor below hers was in need of repairs.

Finally, he found the right door; Brittany's room was unmistakable. Everything was neat, clean, and organized. One old trunk stood against the wall. A cheap spread covered the bed, and there was a faint scent he recognized. Did the pretty chambermaid stead fancy soap from the Palace? _ No, _he decided, shaking his head, _she probably brings home half-used cakes that would be thrown out anyway._

For a moment the window drapery caught his attention, a billowing, striped affair with a tucked and ornate valance. He bent to lift an edge and saw the tiny hand stitching. Had she sewn it herself? She couldn't afford to pay for these draperies, of that much he was certain. Even the fabric had to have been dear.

Arthur let the curtain fall and reached inside his coat. Pulling out the packet he had wrapped the night before, he knelt beside Brittany's bed. Reaching beneath it as far as he could, he worked the tightly taped bundle up into the space between the frame planks and the mattress. Then he sat on the bed, bouncing up and down until he was sure that compressing the old springs wouldn't jar it loose. Satisfied, he smoothed the spread, and then stepped back.

Whistling so softly it was more breath than tune, Arthur took one last look around. It was a pity Brittany had not been born into wealth. If she had, he might have considered courting her. She was pretty enough for any man, and her demeanor was charming, if ridiculously naïve. He knew he would have to end the acquaintanceship now, just to make sure that she was not connected with him. That meant, of course, no more friendly chatting when she was the one assigned to his room.

Arthur felt a miniscule sense of loss at the thought, but it was only a small regret, and he forgot about it as he started back down the stairs. A few minutes later, he was half a block away, another blurred figure in the fog that no one would notice or remember.

* * *

><p>By the end of the first week, Santana was tired of dashing from one end of the city to the other seeing this and that, following her father's and sister's whims of amusement. The night before they had been to a ball celebrating the anniversary of the Harlans, old friends of her father's. They owned a vineyard, and Papa had introduced her to their son Joseph. Santana knew that Papa hoped for them to make a connection, as it would be especially good for business for the two families to unite. Santana had to admit that he was very handsome with soft brown hair, a kind smile, and light blue eyes that made Santana think of another pair of piercing blue eyes that seemed to haunt her dreams the past week. Joseph and Santana were remarkably similar; they both hated city life and wanted to run their family businesses alongside spouses that would help them as equals. In fact, Joseph was everything Santana had ever wanted in a partner. So, she was utterly confused as to why she felt only mild, platonic friendliness towards him and why her thoughts kept straying to a certain blonde haired, blue-eyed Palace maid all night.<p>

At the end of the night, Papa had made plans with the Harlans to visit again soon, all three parents hinting about a possible courtship between their eldest children, much to Santana's dismay. During the carriage ride back to the Palace, when she had tried to explain to her father that she was not interested in Joseph in a romantic way at all, he had responded as he always did when she had a disagreeing opinion, "Nonsense." She had decided to let it drop, as she knew that arguing with him about it would be futile for the time being and she was sure to raise her voice if she did, and she did not want to wake her slumbering sister leaning on her shoulder in the carriage seat next to her. The rest of the journey back to the hotel had been passed in tense silence.

This morning, Santana's stomach had an all-too-familiar queasy feeling as she listened to Rachel's breathless plan making and her father's recitations of sights they had not yet seen. Papa was reading a list of architecturally important private homes when Santana mentioned that she felt sick.

Papa shook his head and said with obviously fake concern, "Got the vapors, Santana?"

Frowning at the tension between them, Rachel stood abruptly and went to adjust her hat in front of the long mirror. It was wide-brimmed, the pheasant feathers and silk roses arranged like a bouquet. _This is her fourth hat-adjustment session,_ Santana thought wryly. _Or fifth._

"I really don't feel well, Father," Santana said coldly. "Perhaps it was the oysters last night."

Papa pushed his reading glasses down on his nose so that he could look over them at Santana. "Father, is it? Now, when we're alone, you choose to be formal?"

"I apologize," Santana said quickly. The last thing she wanted was to lock horns with Papa. It would only turn a minor disagreement into an hour's worth of arguing. Rachel would sulk if she started the day out with sour tempers and harsh words. She glanced at her sister. She was turning first one way, then the other, arranging her ribbons and pinching her cheeks—and watching _her_, her eyes narrow and urgent in the mirror.

"I accept your apology," Papa said curtly.

"Oh, won't you come with us?" Rachel pleaded from her station in front of the looking glass. "We are going to take a carriage up to Nob Hill, then picnic in Lafayette Park. The kitchen here will make picnic baskets, and the waiter said—"

"I was there when he said it," Santana interrupted her sister's rambling, careful to keep her voice even and soft. "I really don't feel well, Rachel. I would prefer not to vomit and ruin your carriage ride."

Rachel wrinkled her nose at her, and Papa cleared his throat but didn't comment.

"Rachel?" Papa said after ten seconds of tense silence. "Are you ready? You look beautiful, as always."

She turned and he offered his arm. Together they went out the door, with Rachel murmuring sympathies over her shoulder and promising that they would be back before dark.

Once the door had closed, Santana curtsied mockingly toward it, then went to sit by the window. The sun was brilliant this morning, glancing off the streetcar canopies, reflecting from the windows on the east side of the Hummel Building across the street.

Santana pushed one of the side windows open, and a breeze came into the room. The smell of the bay was strong this morning, fresh and salty. She glanced idly back into the room and noticed Rachel's pocketbook lying forgotten on the bed. The beaded flowers were brightly colored, nestled in swirls of embroidery. It might take her an hour or two to miss it, but she would. Whatever would she do without her comb and her mirror and powder? And when she came back for her purse, Santana would have to defend her desires for solitude all over again.

Santana stood up. She was looking forward to a day without crowds or conversation—even if it meant being shut up in this room. If she could catch up to them, she stood a chance of having that kind of day. If not, they would be back, Papa irritated and Rachel flustered.

Santana grabbed the pocketbook, flung open the door, and ran into the hall, slamming it behind her. She sprinted—well, as quickly as she could without hiking up her skirt well past her ankles, as she would have done on the ranch—for the elevator, and then stood, fidgeting until the door finally opened and the cages stopped. She climbed on, standing apart from an older man who was riding downward, an unlit cigar in his mouth and a newspaper in front of his face.

In the lobby, Santana walked as quickly as would be considered _proper_. She very nearly upset a trunk dolly, and then almost stumbled into one of the potted palms that made the hotel seem more like a tropical forest than a brick building. She burst out of the front doors and hopped to a halt, turning to look both up and down Market Street. Her heart began to sink, and then leapt again when she saw them. They had crossed the street to hire an open carriage.

Santana hurried, dodging around the back of a piano mover's wagon, and then racing across just in front of a produce cart. The driver swore at her.

"Rachel? Papa!" she shouted and then realized what she had said. "Father?" she amended, feeling foolish.

Papa and Rachel both turned to watch her coming. When Rachel saw her purse, her hands flew to her mouth and hovered there. "Oh, thank you, Santana. What a ninny I am."

"Sure you won't join us?" Papa asked, tipping his head to one side. "You seem fit enough to me."

"Oh, leave her alone, Father," Rachel said in a cajoling voice. She gestured at the driver, who stood waiting, the carriage door pulled open. "Santana might just want a day to herself."

Papa frowned. "That's childish nonsense and Santana knows it." He let Rachel lead him toward the cab. She shot a look over her shoulder and Santana smiled her thanks.

Once the driver climbed to his seat and lifted his long whip, Santana dodged wagons and pedestrians to get back across the wide street. In front of the Palace, and automobile chugged up. Santana shortened her stride to let it go by as it slowed in front of the entrance. As she passed behind it, she could not help staring at the young man who was driving it. He was tall, blondish, with ramrod posture and a spring in his step as he climbed out of the driver's seat.

Santana followed the man inside, trying not to stare openly, but wondering who he was. His clothes had an odd look and fit. Maybe he was European. For a long moment, until the man disappeared into the hallways that led to the grill, Santana envied him. He looked like he belonged here, like he would belong anywhere on Earth he was set down. He was exactly the kind of young man Papa would hope to find for Rachel—and her, if Papa wasn't so dead set on matching her with Joseph Harlan—and certainly he was the sort of man that Rachel would choose for herself is eh was given the chance.

For about ten seconds, Santana considered following the man into the grill and inquiring who he was—but the whole thing seemed so laughable that she headed for the elevators instead. If Papa was willing to invest a three-month stay in this flamboyant place, he could also be the one to chase the eligible bachelors down in order to inquire about their names and pedigrees.

Santana got into the elevator, and then stepped aside as a fur-coated woman and her little dog got in. "Third floor," she told the operator, and he nodded. The cage rose and stopped on the third floor. The operator opened the doors, and the woman went through them. As they closed, Santana saw a housekeeper's cart rolling past. She caught a glimpse of shining golden hair, braided and coiled, and a milk-white cheek.

She hesitated, but then, as the doors began to close, she stepped forward. The attendant caught at the lever and wrenched the doors back open as Santana turned sideways to avoid getting stuck.

"Miss?" she said, lurching into the hallway. She just had time to regain her balance before the girl turned to look at her. Her eyes were as stunning a shade of blue as the last time Santana gazed into them.

"Good morning," she said, at a loss for anything else to say. Her skin was radiant and her hair was braided intricately, piled up on top of her head like a shining crown.

"Did you need something, Miss?" she asked politely.

Santana stared, realizing slowly that she looked uncomfortable.

"I just wanted…" she began, and then stopped. _What do I want. To ask her name? To find out where she lives and if she can ride a horse?_

Santana was snapped out of her frantic thoughts by someone behind her calling out harshly, "Miss Pierce!"

A stout matron in a white uniform was coming down the hallway. The girl reacted instantly, standing straighter, her eyes lowering modestly. "Did you need something, Miss?" she repeated in a strained voice.

"Towels," Santana said in a loud voice. If we could have an extra towel or two. Room 445."

The maid glanced up and nodded, and then pushed her cart away without looking back. Santana reluctantly turned back to the elevator, hearing the scolding of the matron begin as the beautiful Miss Pierce got closer to her. Santana wanted to go up to the woman and tell her to stop being so hard on the girl, since she was the one who approached her, but she figured that would probably get the beautiful girl in even more trouble, so she kept her mouth shut.

When the grillwork doors opened, Santana forced herself to get in. She went back to the room and waited. It wasn't too long before there was a soft knock on the door. Santana scrambled to her feet and hurried to the door, stopping just before it to smooth out her skirt and top and pat her hair so she looked presentable. She took a deep breath and slowly opened the heavy door to reveal the constant subject of her thoughts and dreams for the past week.

"Hello," Santana greeted lamely. _Again_.

"Hello, Miss. Here are the towels you requested," Miss Pierce said politely, glancing briefly into Santana's eyes. Santana could have sworn that she heard Miss Pierce's breath hitch when ocean-blue met chocolate-brown, but the beautiful girl looked away before she could really be sure.

"Thank you, Miss Pierce. I don't know why my sister needs so many towels for being so slight of stature," Santana smiled. Miss Pierce's eye flicked back up to hers, and for a second, she flashed Santana the most brilliant smile she had ever seen—and was that a chuckle she heard? But, it was gone as soon as it arrived, as though the maid suddenly remembered where she was.

Miss Pierce changed her facial expression to one of polite professionalism and lowered her gaze, much to Santana's chagrin. "Have a good day, and don't hesitate to ask if you need anything else in the future," Miss Pierce said with that quiet voice of hers as she turned to push her cart back down the hallway.

"Wait!" Santana called out before she could get too far away down the hall. "I-I didn't get your name." Well, at least one of her questions would be answered.

The housekeeper turned to look over her shoulder, surprise evident on her pretty face. "Brittany," she said softly before turning back to her cart and pushing it quickly down the hall to the service elevators and out of sight of the Latina still standing in the doorway.

Brittany. Her name was Brittany.

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><p><strong>AN: What was it that Arthur hid in Brittany's room? What is Santana going to do about Brittany? Will Rachel find Mr. (or Ms.?) Right?** **Find out when we return with another installment of _Impossible to Ignore_...I know, the suspense is KILLING you all. ;****P**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hey, guys! Okay, so, I apologize in advance for this A/N, as it will be long - I am in a rambling mood. ;) Feel free to skip it and just go to the chapter. As if I needed to tell you. ;) Anyway, let's get started, shall we? Great!**

**_dagleek:_ Hehe, your review made me laugh. I hope some of your suspense will be relieved with this chapter! ;)**

**Okay, so, I was planning on updating on Wednesday, but I got sidetracked reading so many fabulous stories! _White Shadows _by Good Afternoon is seriously one of the best period piece Brittana stories I have ever read. It's set in the Civil War, and it's just...like, if you haven't started reading it yet, do it. Now! It gives _Music Box_ (my favorite Brittana story on FF) a run for its money. **There is a reason why it has 163 reviews for only 5 chapters. Compared to this story, which has 13. It's _that_ awesome. :)** Seriously, it is _so much_ better than my mediocre attempt at writing.  
><strong>

**The downside to be being obsessed with that story is that it made me second guess myself. Which is another reason why I put off writing this chapter, lol. Then, I gave myself a good smack and said, "Get over it, already!" So, I did. :) I'm first and foremost a reader, so I do get obsessed with reading far more than writing, and I'm just in awe of what people have done on here. :) Awww, I'm so sweet (Riiiiight) ;)**

**Anyway, oh! Right. So, forgive me. I have no one in real life to gleek out to, so I must share this with you guys. I was on Facebook the other night because...who knows? You never know _why_ you gravitate to that site; it just sucks you in. Anyway, and I saw this article thingy about the upcoming Glee episodes. Anyway, it was talking about the different couples, and I was hoping it would say something about Finchel breaking up or something, but it didn't even mention them. Anyway, well, this might be spoiler-y, so don't read any further if you don't want to know...something. Anyway, so naturally I wanted to see what they said about Brittana. Well, Jane Lynch was quoted as saying that she doesn't think that Brittany loves Santana the way that Santana loves Brittany, and that Santana needs a real girlfriend. Apparently, she believes that Brittany is in love with Santana, but they're not girlfriends. I was like, 1) How are they not girlfriends? They go out, are exclusive, and while we haven't gotten an actual kiss yet (grrr, btw), they obviously do off camera. 2) Brittany is in love with Santana, but she doesn't love her the way Santana does? Um...What? 3) Does no one on the Glee cast or staff support Brittana? Besides Naya. We know she's awesome and wants them to end up together. It's like, really? Heather doesn't think Santana and Brittany should be together, and now Jane doesn't either? What is wrong with these people! *sigh* Okay, rant over. Sorry, I had to get that out. :)**

**Ahem, so...moving on. I hope you guys like this chapter! I worked really hard on it, but I'm still not sure about all of it. *shrugs* We get progress, though, sort of, so that's good, right? :) Okay, I'll shut up now. Enjoy! :)**

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><p>"Please, Mercedes?"<p>

Mercedes smiled wryly. The Dutch beauty was proposing a trade that would get her off work and out of the hotel by seven this evening. "Mercedes, I'll trade you two for the price of one," the girl pleaded. "Please?"

Mercedes nodded, and then narrowed her eyes. "Why? You have a crush on him, too? Half the girls think he's just Mr. Razzmatazz."

Brittany's blush was so rosy and so immediate that Mercedes threw her head back and laughed loudly. "I guess I was like you once, but it was so long ago that I can't recall it, honey."

Brittany smiled. "Then you'll trade room assignments?"

Her blue eyes were so wide and hopeful that Mercedes felt that the only thing she _could_ do was agree. "Can't see why not. I have no need to get a glimpse of the handsome Mr. Abrams in 322."

"I just want to talk to him." Brittany blushed again. "He's a friend of mine, in a way."

Mercedes shook her head. "You have it bad, sweetheart."

Brittany shook her head vehemently. "I just haven't seen him in nearly a week, and he—"

"You didn't sleep with him, _did you_?" Mercedes demanded. The instant darkening of Brittany's already flaming cheeks made her sorry she had been so blunt.

"No!" Brittany looked like she was about the cry. "I just…He used to talk to me every day, but now he seems never to be there and I just wondered if…"

"I know," Mercedes nodded sympathetically. "People of his class think of serving girls as trash, Brittany."

"I'm just worried that something is wrong," Brittany finished, her eyes becoming red. Mercedes could tell that the girl was fighting tears. She felt sorry for the young blonde; she was the most good-natured person she had ever met, but Mercedes worried about her naiveté.

"Here, take these two," she said, pulling a nub of pencil from behind her ear to write down the room numbers. "You can have Mr. Hoi Polloi and the little old lady in 320. She's easy. That way I don't have to feel too guilty about this."

Brittany looked so grateful that it was all Mercedes could do not to pat her cheek. "You stay out of trouble now."

Brittany nodded. "I'm not in the sort of trouble you imagine."

Mercedes nodded wearily. "Every woman is, Brittany," she said flatly and pushed her cart down the hall before Brittany could say anything else.

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><p>As the week went on, the Palace filled up to the rafters. Every housekeeper was required to work longer hours than usual just to keep up with the endless cleaning. Brittany had seen the signs on their gilded tripod stands on the sidewalk. The Metropolitan Opera was coming. Mrs. Beiste said people would travel from all over for the performances.<p>

It seemed to Brittany that there could not possibly be more silk and chiffon in the world than already filled the hallways, but each day seemed to bring another entourage, another deluge of beautifully dressed people.

Brittany had been assigned to Arthur's room on Monday. It was easy to clean. Too easy—it looked as though he had not slept in the bed at all. Tuesday, she had had to trade room assignments once more, enduring Mercedes' pitying looks.

On Wednesday, she had been too embarrassed to trade again, but she had some rooms on the second floor. She kept making trips back to Arthur's hall, fetching linens she didn't need, keeping an eye on his door, listening for any signs of life as she passed. Three times she pretended to drop her scrub brush as she went by so that she could pause and listen more carefully. Finally, around three o'clock, she waited for a moment when the hallway was empty of women in sweeping gowns and men in dark suits, and then knocked on Arthur's door. When there was no answer, she used her passkey to open the door.

The room looked perfectly undisturbed. Arthur's things were in the neat order in which she had put them. So he had not been here for at least four days. She closed the door, her heart aching with worry.

Finally, at six-thirty, Brittany was finished for the day. She signed out, and then went back upstairs for a last look. The halls were less crowded now. Most of the guests were on their way to balls or dinners. Her heart hammering, Brittany knocked again, and then opened the door and went in. Nothing had been touched. Arthur had not been there at all.

Brittany drew in a deep breath, closing the door part-way to hide from anyone walking past. She was starting to feel frantic. What would she do the following day if the room was still pristinely clean? That could mean that he really was in trouble somewhere and unable to make it back to the hotel.

Brittany stood beside the bay window and stared blindly down into the street at the festive crowds. Maybe Arthur was just off somewhere celebrating the coming of the opera along with everyone else on Nob Hill. _But what if he isn't? What if something is wrong?_

Arthur had told her that he was from a fine St. Louis family. What did he know about the rough gold speculators and railroad men who drank at the saloons south of The Slot? His life had been very different from hers, sheltered and pampered. There were terrible places down there, with opium and women and who knew what else for sale.

Brittany shivered. Maybe Arthur had blundered into some saloon near Chinatown and had offended one of the important families there. There were a thousand ways for a cocky young man to get himself in trouble in San Francisco.

Brittany realized she was still staring at the bustle of carriages and pedestrians in the street several stories below the window. She blinked and almost turned away before she saw a glint of shiny brown hair as a man tipped his hat to a passing matron. Staring, she recognized the straight set of the man's shoulders and his jaunty stride. It was Arthur!

Whirling around, Brittany ran for the door, peeked both ways down the hallway, and slipped out. She locked the door behind her and dashed for the service elevator. When the doors opened on the narrow hallway that ran in back of the lobby offices, she stepped out, and then hesitated. Holding her breath and refusing to let herself think too much of the consequences, she turned away from the Third Street doors and headed for the lobby.

The area in front of the concierge desk was crowded with people dressed for a ball. The women were posing, standing with their heads held high, their hair perfectly coiffed, their laughter ringing out over the men's more somber voices. The double doors that opened onto Market Street were being held wide open by the doormen to let the crowds step freely toward the carriages at the curb, off to one party or another.

Brittany slunk along the wall, standing behind a potted palm, knowing that if she got caught, it could mean getting fired. She clutched her coat close, praying that no one would notice her risking her job for a glimpse of Arthur Abrams.

"I will wait just a few seconds, then go," she whispered, promising herself. But her heart was beating wildly as she watched the front doors, frozen against the wall. A minute went past, then two. She half-turned, glancing behind her, and then at the crowd around the concierge's desk, her breath coming quick and sharp.

There! She felt herself shiver in relief. Arthur was coming in the front doors, flipping a coin at the doorman, smiling at the world. Brittany smiled. He was swinging along, his buoyant stride and straight shoulders as strong and confident as ever. So he was fine, he was safe. She would see him again.

Brittany felt a rush of relief as Arthur paused in the middle of the lobby, slowed by a pretty girl in a plumed hat and an older man who walked arm in arm. The girl was mincing along, her chin high and her step short and dainty. Arthur glanced at the girl, which made Brittany notice her more fully. She wore a dove-gray walking skirt with a tiny bolero overblouse and tucked sleeves—and she really was beautiful.

Brittany recognized her. She was staying on the fourth floor with her father and sister in adjoining rooms. Her sister was very beautiful and had been kind and unassuming the day she had asked for towels. She found herself blushing at the memory of that day, but she thought nothing of it beyond that she was embarrassed by her behavior. Brittany had hoped that the breathtaking Latina had not thought her rude—but Mrs. Beiste was death on anyone chatting in the hallways to a guest, or at all. She was always careful when she talked with Arthur, never getting more than a step away from her cart in the hall.

As Brittany watched, Arthur moved toward the desk. She was sure he was about to ask one of the porters for assistance with something, but then he turned and openly stared at the girl as she made her way across the lobby on her father's arm. Her back was arched and her shoulders thrown back in one of the most exaggerated bends Brittany had ever seen. She looked graceful and delicate, and Arthur seemed unable to take his eyes off of her.

Brittany felt a hot flush starting at her jaw line and rising to crimson her cheeks. She stepped away from the wall and turned, heading for the narrow hallway past the gilded elevators that would lead her to the Third Street entrance.

"Brittany?"

It was Arthur's voice, and she almost turned—but she knew that her face was positively inflamed and that she would stammer and be perfectly foolish if she tried to speak.

"Brittany!"

He caught her just past the elevators, pulling her to a stop, and then gently turning her back around to face him. His eyes were intent as he examined her. "Are you all right?"

She managed a nod. "I've been worried about you," she blurted out without meaning to.

His dark eyes lit and he laughed. "Why?"

"You haven't been in your room and…" she trailed off, embarrassed and amazed that she had as much as admitted she had been checking on him.

But he smiled at her, waving his hand as if to erase her concern. "I've been taking care of business matters elsewhere. Say, Brittany," he added, leaning closer. "Did you see that girl in the gray? Is she staying here?" Brittany nodded, numb, unable to pull away. He leaned closer still. "Could you find out her name for me? Or what room she's in? She's going to be at a Mrs. Hampton's gala later tonight I think, but…I'd pay you something."

Brittany managed to shake her head as she backed away. "No," she said as clearly as she could. "That's against the rules…" She was fighting tears and a strange dizziness that made it hard for her to breathe.

"Brittany, is something wrong?" he asked, clearly puzzled by her reaction. He took her hand, but she yanked it free and spun around, running down the hallway away from him. She banged out the Third Street doors, nearly colliding with one of the waiters just now arriving for work. She ran on, hoping he wouldn't mention the incident to anyone or report her unseemly behavior to Mrs. Beiste.

* * *

><p>Rachel was jittery with excitement. It was Thursday night—the beginning of more than a week of balls and galas leading up to the opening of the most wonderful event of the year. The entire city was anticipating the Metropolitan Opera Company coming from New York, and everyone wanted to celebrate the occasion. The great Caruso was coming, and dozens of other world-famous singers. Every member of high society wanted to be part of the excitement.<p>

There were so many parties that Papa had told Rachel they could not possibly attend them all. Santana had argued for this one because it was in the Palace, Rachel was sure. Her sister could always slink back to their room when she had had enough.

The sun had set around seven in a haze of fog, but then the sky had cleared and the stars had come out. The carriage ride, in a long caravan of beautiful turnouts following the famous tally-ho coach of Mr. Motta, had taken the guests all over the city, and then back past the cemeteries and down through the Presidio. The women's cheeks were flushed with the cool night air, and conversations were animated.

The Palace ballroom was exquisite. Garlands and fresh flowers festooned the balustrade between the dance floor and the orchestra. The white pillars that stood out from the walls were covered with a clever network of tiny lights. Overhead, the intricate painting on the ornate ceiling seemed to move with the flickering of the candles set on the white-clothed refreshment tables.

Rachel turned her wrist to straighten her cuff, smoothing the wine-colored silk, and then touched the creamy white lace that overlay her bodice and collar. At the gala the night before, she had learned that the young man with the shiny hair and spectacles had a name. He was Arthur Abrams and he was dashing and handsome and a wonderful dancer. Arthur Abrams. Even his name was handsome. She tried not to stare as he walked from the crystal punch bowl to the far side of the room.

"Papa says you are to dance with other men, now."

Santana's voice startled Rachel and she whirled around. Her sister was smiling wryly.

"Why?" Rachel demanded.

Santana shrugged. "I think it's like trolling for fish. You try to drag the bait across as much water as…"

Rachel lifted her hand impulsively, almost angry enough to slap her. "Do you know that we have been here over two weeks now, and you have been miserable company most of that time?"

Santana shrugged apathetically. "I'd rather be back out on the ranch."

Rachel touched her lace collar. "Helping the hands pull calves in a muddy barn?"

She only nodded. "I know it makes no sense to you, but I hate all this."

Rachel watched her gesture at the room of swirling dancers, the tables with their centerpieces of iris and ferns. "How could anyone hate it? It's beautiful, Santana."

"It is, in its way," she relented, obviously hearing the pleading in the younger girl's voice. "I just like other things more."

"Father is pushing all the men your way, isn't he?"

Santana nodded.

"Some handsome ones, too. Like that Joseph fellow. You know he took a shine to you."

She watched her nod again, her eyes straying across the room. When she noticed a flash of recognition flicker across Santana's eyes followed immediately by a bright smile, she leaned close and asked, "Which one?"

"Which one what?" she whispered back, teasing her.

"Which young bachelor do you fancy?"

"Really, Rachel, no one really has caught my eye. I know that you are charmed by your bespectacled friend, but I…" She paused as the music began again, this time a lively old-fashioned quadrille.

Rachel glanced around. Where had Arthur gone? After a few seconds, she spotted him walking onto the dance floor with a laughing, redheaded girl who looked stunning in a moss-green gown.

"It's just as well," Santana said, having followed her gaze. "Papa said you were to—"

"Dance with me," Rachel insisted, taking her sister's hand. The lines were forming. She wanted to be as close to Arthur as she could.

Santana was frowning as Rachel pulled her forward. "No, Rachel, not a quadrille. The go on _forever_ and—"

"Please," Rachel begged her, desperate. "If we can get close enough when they change partners—"

"Rachel," she protested, but when her sister pulled on her arm, she came along, as Rachel had known she would. If there was one thing Santana hated more than crowds, it was making a scene so the crowd ended up looking at _her_.

The squares were forming quickly. Another couple very nearly completed Arthur's group, but Rachel managed to maneuver Santana around so that they were next in place just as the introduction music stopped, and then began again, this time in earnest.

Rachel was careful. She pretended not to see Arthur in the first three passes, and then feigned surprise when her turn came to walk the center, swung around by every man she passed. She flashed him a smile, tilting her head, and the swirled away, back to Santana's waiting arm.

The red-haired girl was striking from a distance, but not really all that pretty close up. Her ears were a little too big and she had freckles on her chest and arms. On her face, they had been powdered or bleached out, but Rachel was sure they had been there to start with.

The dance brought the couples into a straight line, alternating the men and women, with the exception of Santana, who was acting as Rachel's male counterpart. _Now,_ Rachel thought, and she took her turn, spinning around gaily, laughing with her head tilted back. Santana played her part better than Rachel though she would, lifting her arm so she could twirl faster, flaring her skirts so that her ankles showed. She refused to glance at Arthur again during the dance, or after it, when the couples stood in twos and fours, breathing hard. Santana escorted her back, and she still resisted the urge to look at Arthur as he led the flushed redhead from the floor.

"Is he coming?" she asked Santana halfway back to where the tables and chairs were waiting for those who had had enough of dancing of the moment. "Do you see him?" she demanded.

"Whoever do you mean—_ouch!_" Santana stopped teasing when Rachel dug her nails into her arm. "Yes, I see him. Yes, he is looking around, presumably for you."

Rachel allowed herself a glance. Arthur was coming toward them, smiling. "You two look very practiced dancing together," he said as he got closer. "I presume you are the sister she has mentioned?"

"Our father has spent a lot of money trying to imbue us with culture," Santana said. Arthur laughed as Rachel introduced them. The music began again, and Rachel turned ever so slightly, as though the melody had drawn her irresistibly.

"Would you mind if I stole your lovely sister away?" Arthur said.

Santana shook her head. "She will wear me out if you don't." She was being gracious, almost smiling, and Rachel shot her a look of pure gratitude. She felt lovely and breathless and she wanted the evening to last forever.

* * *

><p>Brittany just wanted the evening to end already. She had initially taken the serving job at the Palace's ball Thursday night because she wanted to make some extra money and wanted a distraction from her thoughts about Arthur, but now she wished that Mercedes had not made the suggestion in the first place.<p>

From her vantage point walking around the balustrade holding a tray of hors d'oeuvres for the guests to take at their leisure, she could see the entire ballroom. Which meant that she could see _him._ When she first spotted him in the crowd, looking dashing as always in his pressed suit, Brittany ducked behind a pillar, afraid that he would recognize her and inquire as to why she fled from him the day before.

It turned out that she needn't have worried. Arthur did not notice her presence at all. _Even if he did,_ Brittany chastised herself, feeling foolish. _It is not like he would approach me, a lowly maid, in such a public venue as a ball._ So, Brittany resigned herself to her status once again and made it a point to try not to look over at him throughout the night. She was succeeding until she noticed Arthur leading the petite brunette beauty from the previous day onto the dance floor.

Seeing them laughing jovially as he twirled her about the floor, Brittany felt the last of her hopes and dreams crumble down around her. She could not believe how foolish she had been, believing that Arthur actually cared for her the way she hoped he would. Willing her tears not to fall, Brittany held her head high and continued her duties, walking slowly around the balustrade.

Five songs later, Brittany finally gathered the courage to glance out toward the main area of the ballroom, crowded with guests in all manners of extravagant dress. _Of course. The first person I _would_ see would be the man I most wish not to,_ Brittany thought grimly. Arthur was no longer dancing with the striking brunette from the fourth floor, but rather was standing off to the side with her and speaking with another woman.

Brittany recognized the woman. It was the brunette's sister. Brittany found that she could not tear her gaze away from the stunning Latina. She was wearing a dress of red silk that was form-fitting around her torso, but flared out at her hips. Her raven hair cascaded down her back in a mass of beautiful waves. It reminded Brittany of a dark waterfall, and she was startled when she found herself wondering what her hair would feel like between her fingers. Shaking her head to try to rid her mind of such thoughts, Brittany became aware for the first time of another man's presence in the group.

He was standing across from Arthur and beside the Latina Brittany was still trying to get out of her mind. He had soft brown hair and warm blue eyes, and currently his blue eyes were trained fondly on the girl standing to his left. Brittany tamped down on the confusing jolt of jealousy that alarmingly shot throughout her body by focusing on Arthur. _Well, that was a brilliant idea,_ Brittany chided herself, feeling another wave of heartache wash over her at the sight of him with the shorter of the brunettes.

The music started up again, and Brittany recognized the song right away. It was a waltz. She cringed when she saw the two couples saunter onto the dance floor. Brittany did not want to bear witness to Arthur holding the brunette in the intimate position required of the waltz. She allowed her gaze to settle on the brunette's sister as her partner held her closely. Brittany felt her heart constrict at the sight. She was momentarily worried about why she was having such a strong reaction to the Latina and her dance partner and why she wished that she was the one holding the beautiful girl so close.

_Why am I feeling this way? I have never felt this way before for a woman. This jealousy is unlike me, and I don't even know them_. Brittany's thoughts were frantic as she continued to flick her gaze between the two couples. Then, a thought hit her. _I am not jealous of her partner, I am jealous of them in general. _She reasoned that she wished that she could dance the night away with Arthur, someone she cared about, like the beautiful brunette was doing with her dance partner. She refused to ponder further her wish to _be_ the Latina's partner.

Suddenly, the Latina's eyes were on her, and Brittany felt her breath hitch. The gaze was so direct, so _intense_, that Brittany felt herself drowning in the girl's dark brown orbs. Their eyes' connection was broken when the song ended, and Brittany felt her rapid heartbeats begin to calm again. That is, until she noticed that Arthur was leading the small brunette away and out onto the balcony.

At the end of her rope, Brittany spun on her heel, deposited her tray on a nearby table, and fled the ballroom. She didn't care if she didn't get paid—she just couldn't stand seeing Arthur together with the brunette a second longer. Before she went down the service corridor in the corner of the ballroom, Brittany took one last glance back, noticing that Arthur and the girl were nowhere in sight, and, curiously, the taller brunette was looking around, as though she was trying to find someone, but her dance partner was still at her side.

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><p>Friday had been terrible for Brittany. She had cried off and on all day at work, miserable and embarrassed, hiding her red eyes by looking at the floor all day long. Saturday had not been any better, and Mercedes had noticed, of course, and had chided her for being silly. Sunday she managed better in the morning, but the afternoon had been ruined by a glimpse of Arthur, the girl on his arm, climbing into the elevator. Brittany had forced herself to walk past without a single glance at the closed elevator doors. Sunday had been the worst of all. She had seen Arthur twice from a distance—and he had not noticed her at all either time.<p>

On Monday morning, Brittany stared at her list. Of course! Brittany had traded Mercedes rooms for almost a week to get assigned to Arthur's room. Now that seeing him was the last thing she wanted on Earth, Mrs. Beiste had given it to her.

"Brittany?" Quinn whispered.

"Move along, please, Miss Pierce," Mrs. Beiste said, loudly enough to make Brittany jump. She pushed her cart ahead, mumbling an apology, and followed Quinn and the rest toward the service elevators.

"What's wrong with you?" Quinn demanded once they were halfway down the long hall.

Brittany smiled as brightly as she could. "Nothing. Why do you ask?"

"Because you looked like you were about to cry a moment ago."

Brittany looked into her friend's hazel eyes. "I just got a room I would rather not have, that's all."

Quinn nodded knowingly as they slowly moved forward in line. The elevators could handle no more than four at a time with the bulky carts. "The young man Mercedes told me about?"

Brittany sighed. "What did she say?"

Quinn smiled. "Just that the dashing young gentleman you've fall for is head-over-heels for the little snippet on the fourth floor—the one with her father and sister?"

"How would Mercedes know?" Brittany said slowly.

Quinn smiled sympathetically. "She served a ball Saturday up on Nob Hill. They danced together all night."

"I have no real interest in what he does," Brittany said tightly.

"I suppose Mercedes misunderstood," Quinn said quickly as they got into the lift. On the second floor, Brittany rolled her cart out of the cage before Quinn could say anything more. She headed down the hall, determined to start at the far end. Then she heard the sound of a room door opening and glanced up. Arthur was locking his door. He turned and looked straight at her. It all happened so fast that she had no time at all to react, as he nodded politely—as if to a stranger—then walked past her. Heart thudding, she could only watch him go, his stride long and purposeful as he turned the corner, heading toward the gilded elevators that would take him to the lobby.

Brittany took a deep breath. It was obvious that she had deceived herself completely, imagining romantic attraction where there had only been idle cordiality—or not even that. She had obviously angered him by refusing to find out about the pretty girl.

Pulling in another shuddering breath, Brittany squared her shoulders and rolled her cart forward, stopping at Arthur's door. There could hardly be a better time to clean and restock his room without running into him.

Her hand a little unsteady, Brittany turned her master key in the lock and pushed the door open. Arthur rarely made much mess. _It won't take long_, she thought, pulling fresh bed linens from the stack on her cart.

Brittany stepped into the room, her eyes stinging. It was as familiar to her as her own, almost. She had memorized his trunks, the way his ties hung unevenly on the wardrobe top, his habit of lining his boots up neatly, like many women did their shoes. She sighed, a sad, lonely feeling seeping through her. Her dream might have been foolish, but she missed it terribly. Now, there would be no reason to wake up excited, hopeful. All her days would be the same.

Brittany put the clean sheets on the bed, careful not to leave even the slightest crease. She held her chin up as she worked, whispering to herself angrily. "This is just as well. The whole thing was a silly daydream, anyway. And I knew it."

She picked up the pillow to fluff the feathers and was startled when a brown leather book dropped to the floor. It lay at her feet, open. It was a journal, she realized instantly. _His journal_. The entries were dated.

Brittany picked up the book, glancing back toward the door. She knew she should not read it, but she did anyway, flipping back to the first page, knowing exactly what she hoped to find. Perhaps somewhere he had noted that the housekeeper had chatted with him.

In the front of the book, Arthur's name was written in dark ink, with a flourish that made her picture his confident grin. Brittany turned a page, and then a few more. Her eyes fell on a day with a single line for an entry.

_April 2. Still waiting for someone suitable to check in._

She slowed and turned the pages carefully. If he mentioned her at all, it would be in the last week of March or the first week of April, Brittany thought. She glanced toward the open door. They were not allowed to close the doors of the rooms they were cleaning. If Mrs. Beiste saw her cart and the closed door, she would be in terrible trouble. Brittany stepped back so that someone passing in the hall could not see what she was doing.

_April 4. Still waiting, but talked to St. James today and got what I needed to make the stay here easier. His only requirement this time is that I hide what I haven't used. It makes sense not to keep it all here, though my new banker is somewhat unusual, though prettier than most._

That made little sense to Brittany, so she flipped forward to an entry dated the fourteenth, three days before—the day of the ball Mercedes had served.

_April 14. All is well. Rachel falling nicely. She tells me her father owns upwards of three thousand acres and a cattle operation in addition to his speculations in railroad stocks and mining claims. This is the one for me, I do believe. She is pretty enough, though not very smart. Her sister seems a dunce as well, though sincere. I will be able to take it all, if I am cautious and bide my time. Theresa, Ruth, and now Rachel. My third marriage will be the best._

Brittany felt dizzy, almost sick. The newest entry had been made that morning.

_April 17. Rachel and family leaving tonight, but will be back tomorrow noon. I will be waiting in the lobby as we arranged and will take her to luncheon. I will make sure she sees me flirting mildly elsewhere—time for a little jealousy, I think. All has gone smoothly. A pity she is not clever enough or deep enough to be much sport._

Brittany closed the journal. She felt physically ill. What if she had had money? He would be wooing her. "I would have fallen completely for his charm," she breathed. "I did!" Brittany shivered. She might have married him and lived to repent her foolishness forever.

A chasm of hurt opened inside her. She remembered herself walking down the hall with a lift in her step, singing to herself because he had spent a few moments of his time talking to her. She felt her stomach tighten with shame.

On the heels of her hurt came anger and a stab of pity for the girl upstairs, dancing all night with a man who thought she and her sister were stupid but could recite their holdings. Gripping the journal tightly, like she was afraid a snake would strike at her if she loosened her grip, Brittany made a decision. She knew it could cost her her job. If Arthur came back tonight, he might report his loss to the front desk. She fought with herself for a few seconds, and then hurriedly slipped the journal beneath the pile of clean sheets on her cart.

"You are a scoundrel and I hate you, Arthur Abrams," she said aloud. "And I will ruin your plan, if I can."

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><p><strong>AN: Oooo, the plot thickens! ;) Next chapter will have a twist that none of you will see coming, mwahahahahaaaaa! Hehe, have to keep you guys interested somehow. ;)**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:**** Hello, dearest readers! Another chapter, yippee! ;)**

_**K:**_** Aw, thanks. *blushes* I hope you like this update! :)**

**_wkgreen: _Hehe, I love your little speculations each chapter. :) I think you might be surprised about what happens, though. ;)**

**_dagleek: _Haha, I will _never_ stop thickening the plot! ;) Oh, and don't worry, there's going to be lots more Brittana from here on out.**

**You want to know something that totally blew my mind when I was typing? Sure you do, don't even try to deny it. ;) Anyway, I realized that I have "regular" reviewers! Not that I don't love the others who have reviewed, but seriously, I _love _that you three (and you know who you are) seem invested enough to comment each time! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. :) And, now, you are obligated to review each chapter after this because of that. ;) Lol, j/k! No, but seriously you guys, thanks. :)**

**Oh, and I sat down to start this chapter on Monday, but then realized I didn't feel like thinking, so I decided to watch D.E.B.S., which is a really good feel-good serious-spoof movie, if you haven't seen it. I personally love it. Anyway, the point is that I kept thinking throughout the whole movie, "Brittana would make this 20 times better." You know you are obsessed when you watch a movie visualizing Glee characters instead of the ones actually in the movie. I called the movie in my head C.H.E.E.R.I.O.S. and even made up a word for each letter. Anyway...I have absolutely _no_ idea why I just told you all that. I thought it was funny. *shrugs* I might try my hand at a Brittana story that goes along with the D.E.B.S. movie sometime...I don't know. **

**Omg, I just finished watching "Yes/No." *Spoilers: for those of you who haven't watched it yet.* A few things crossed my mind. 1) *sigh* Yet another episode about Finn and Finchel. 2) Great, just what Finn's big head needs, an adult saying how much Finn's shown him what a man is. 3) Yay...more Brittana just holding hands... 4) Why didn't Rachel and Kurt apply to other schools? You'd still be in New York if you applied to Julliard or NYU or something! That's bad planning. 5) Why would you sing that song to Finn, Rachel, when he only cares about you when it's convenient for him? 6) For the love of all that is holy, SAY _NO_, RACHEL! I am happy for Emma, though, because she's adorable. :)  
><strong>

_**Well,**_** I have taken up entirely too much of your time babbling on like Rachel Berry, so let's get to the chapter! Enjoy! :)**

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><p>The kitchen was filled with salty, fragrant steam from the oyster pots. The chef had made candied sweet potatoes in addition to the usual array of vegetables, and the odor of cinnamon and nutmeg permeated the kitchen and the dining room.<p>

Will Schuester hung his order sheets on the chef's carousel, and then turned to see David, one of the young assistant chefs, standing beside the salad-preparation work table and smiling, his hands flecked with green from making salads for dinner. "So, do you work this shift from now on?"

Will shook his head. "Tomorrow and Friday I work breakfast. Then never again, I hope."

David laughed. "You hate mornings, don't you?"

Will nodded. "And people acting like pigs at a trough." He turned to the wine steward to hand him the slip for table five.

Out in the dining room, Will arranged his face in a professionally pleasant expression. He straightened the snow-white linen apron tied around his waist, feeling content. After almost a year of working his way up through the ranks of the nearly 150 waiters at the Palace, he was about to get the second supper shift—the one he had wanted from the start. After eight o'clock at night there were fewer Americans. It was quieter, more civilized. The European guests knew how to spend a few hours over a fine meal talking and drinking wine, and then left gratuities big enough to matter. Americans were like country bumpkins, even most of the wealthy ones. They were as pleased to eat boardinghouse fare as real cuisine.

Will poured another glass of wine for a young man at one table, and then removed a plate emptied of oyster-stuffed mushrooms from another. A woman across the room laughed merrily. Her companions were all sharing the joke, whatever it was. None of them was hunched over their plates, eating the wondrous food too fast, nor were they ignoring it in favor of business talk. There were savoring the exquisite result of hard work and decades of experience on the part of the chef and his staff. As they should be.

Will turned to take the soiled dishes back to the kitchen and to check on the entrees ordered by the two romantic couples near the back of the room. One of the women was so pretty, it was hard to serve her without staring. Will sighed. Wealthy men so often seemed to have beautiful women at their sides.

"William? Party of three?"

Will turned and nodded at Cameron, the dining room host, and then looked past him. _Damn. Americans, on man and two young women._ In one practiced glance, Will took them in. There was a family resemblance between them. So, a father and his two grown children most likely. Very clearly monied, and just as clearly without even a semblance of real sophistication. The shorter of the two girls was pretty, but gawking about like an orphan child taken into some grand place. She was in awe of everything from the carpets to the chandeliers. No, Will corrected himself, watching her. She was looking at the other tables, at the other women's gowns and hats and shoes.

Will nodded, half-bowing, and gestured into the dining room as though it were his home and he was welcoming guests. "Please choose any table. I will be with you in a moment."

"Thank you," the man murmured, and then turned back to the taller of his daughters as they walked toward the far wall. "I want you to come along," he was saying.

Will couldn't hear the answer, but the woman shook her head, her eyes angry.

Will turned away before they could notice him watching them. Of course. A table of Americans, and they were arguing. He started back toward the kitchen, consoling himself. _This isn't so bad—only one table of Americans in almost two hours._ With luck, he could stay on this shift forever.

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><p>Brittany awoke early—before the train whistle or the first sleepy crows of Mrs. Sylvester's rooster. She got up, shivering, and peeked out her window. There was no fog this morning. She could see a few lights off toward the financial district.<p>

She lowered her drapes, less uneasy than she had been the night before. She might not lose her job. Arthur might not report the book missing, since he would be ashamed of what was in it. And the girl's family might not report finding it because of the information it contained.

Brittany crept around her room, dressing quickly by candlelight, and then made her way downstairs, buttoning her coat. She would never have known that Rachel and her father and sister would be gone today if it hadn't been for Arthur's journal entry. It seemed too perfect…Arthur's own ruin was possible this morning because he had recorded that one entry.

Brittany lit a match and held it up to read the tall clock in the front room. Four-thirty. Perfect. She would have to go in the service doors, but once inside, she could take the service elevator up to the fourth floor, use her key to put the diary under Rachel's pillow, and then be back down the join the others in line before Mrs. Beiste even got there.

If anyone noticed her coming out of the elevators, she would say that she had left her pocketbook in one of the upper floor stock rooms the night before. It was true. She hadn't wanted to turn in her master key the night before. She was going to need it.

Brittany eased the front door open, and then closed it silently behind her. As she began walking, she glanced skyward and saw the sparkle of stars. No fog. A sunny morning and a glorious day. Deliberately, she lowered her head and looked straight down the block, thinking.

If she was let go because of this, she would apply for a job at the new Beaumont Hotel up on Nob Hill when it opened. They might not ask for referrals or references since they would be in a hurry to staff their new hotel. She could certainly prove that she was trained in hotel work. If she didn't get fired, she would keep cleaning rooms at the Palace for another six months or a year, saving every dime she could. Then she would try to find a position in a modiste's shop. With a recommendation from the Palace, maybe a shop owner wouldn't need to ask much more about her background. Her needlework was good enough to—

"Good morning, Missy."

The man's voice startled Brittany, and she instinctively veered away from it, glancing up. He was propped against the side of a building, his eyes red-rimmed and bleary. He repeated his slurred greeting. She did not answer. Brittany saw other shadowed figures farther down the street and realized that the neighborhoods that she walked through every morning were different just one hour earlier. The people on the streets now were not on their way to work—they were on their way home, many of them drunk and swaying on their feet.

Three women wearing revealing dresses—and obviously without proper corsets—passed Brittany walking the other way. She lowered her head to keep from catching their eyes. She knew what they were, and she pitied them, but she didn't want to make polite conversation with them this morning.

_Someday,_ Brittany promised herself, _I will move out of the Mission district. I'll get a place in a respectable part of the city._ She hurried her steps. The streetcars wouldn't be running until five o'clock. She would have to walk to the Palace today.

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><p>Finn Hudson rolled over in his sleep, reaching to put his arm around Elizabeth. When his caress fell on nothing but wrinkled sheets, he opened his eyes and blinked, patting at the empty bed as though he thought she was there just somehow hidden from him.<p>

"Damnation," he grumbled to himself, sitting up.

The argument the night before came back to him in bits and pieces. He had been drunk. Elizabeth had been furious. She had threatened, again, to leave him—though God only knew where it was she thought she would go. Her father had died five years before, and her mother had become like a child in her grief. She was in a sanatorium out in Denver.

Elizabeth's lectures were wearying. Sometimes Finn felt like he could join in and recite them with her. Last night, she had gone through her suffragette nonsense yet again, trying to convince herself that she could live without his protection and help. She was attending entirely too many progressive meetings down at the schoolhouse. They all were. It was time the men of the community put a stop to all of this.

"Elizabeth?"

She didn't answer.

"Elizabeth?"

A hollow feeling gnawing at his stomach, Finn turned back into the bedroom. She would never actually leave, would she? He just wanted her to tone down all this progressive nonsense to a level a man could live with. He only played poker three times a week. That was not a lot of recreation for a man.

Finn got back into bed. Sometimes she couldn't sleep and she just took a walk down the lane and came back. That was probably it. She would be home before long. Finn turned onto his side. It was only then that he saw her note poking out from beneath her pillow. It was short and to the point.

_I have gone to live with my sister in San Francisco. I will not divorce you, but don't bother trying to come see me. You have ruined my name and my life._

_Elizabeth_

Finn crumpled the paper in one hand, slowly and deliberately. _So, she thinks she can just up and leave, taking all of her money with her, is that it? _She would _not_ get away with this.

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><p>Santana lay staring at the ceiling, wondering how long she would have to be in the city before the habit of waking before dawn left her. She was beginning to hate it. At home, she would dress and be on her way out to check the pastures, ride up to Raul's camp to make sure the new blood-stock bulls were coming along, or ride into Oakland to telegraph the marking in Chicago—<em>something.<em>

Here, in this grand hotel room, she spent three hours a day staring at the ceiling and thinking before Papa and Rachel woke up. She had tried rising to dress twice. Both times, Rachel had snapped awake and sat up, demanding to know what time it was and what was the matter.

Santana considered trying to go back to sleep for another hour, and then swung her feet to the floor and stood up. At least this morning, she didn't have to worry about Rachel, who had left with Papa the night before for Napa. So she could at least get dressed, sit in front of the bay window, and watch the sun come up over the city.

As Santana pulled on her skirt, she toyed with the idea of just going home, now, while Papa was gone and couldn't fight with her about it. Would Papa fetch her back, raging and shouting? It was the eighteenth of April. Calving was almost over. If Papa made them stay as long as he said he was going to, the best of the summer would be gone before they got back to the ranch.

Santana stretched, and then fastened her boots and slouched into the upholstered chair that she had dragged out from the wall and turned so it faced the big bay window the night before. The drapes were already open wide and the sashes on the side-angled windows were up. She was dying for fresh air here. The city smelled like people—like automobile exhaust and sewers and rancid cooking lard.

Santana gripped the arms of the chair. She imagined sending a telegram to her father in Napa explaining that she was in South America mining emeralds. Or in Texas starting her own ranch. Anywhere but here in San Francisco, doing nothing but eating and making polite conversation with people who bored her.

The whole overnight trip up to Napa was for Rachel, Santana knew. Papa didn't usually socialize with cattle buyers. But one of them was young, the second son of a Chicago meat-packing tycoon. He was obviously taken with Rachel, who was just as obviously oblivious toward him. But Papa was apparently hoping that fresh air, spring sunshine, and a long buggy ride would do the trick. Anything to prevent Rachel from spending every waking hour sighing over Arthur Abrams.

Santana shook her head. This whole junket could turn out very differently from Papa's intentions. Instead of finding a monied, well-connected man who would stabilize Rachel's wild whims and impulsive behavior, she might just wind up married to a well-heeled drifter. Arthur was unfailingly polite and respectful to Papa and very attentive to Rachel, but he seemed to come from nowhere, to have no family ties. Papa's interrogations had gotten him no solid information at all. Every question about the Abrams family led to a vague mention of growing up in St. Louis and being a self-made man.

Santana yawned and leaned back. So Rachel might choose a dangerous man instead of a safe one…as for herself, finding a husband seemed a distant possibility at this point. All the dances and expensive suits and handsome faces of the last few weeks had spun past her like gossamer on the wind. She liked dancing and flirting well enough, but marriage to a man whose suit cost as much as two good bulls and a year's wages for a cowhand seemed worse than foolhardy to her.

And none of the young men had really even taken her fancy. Santana sighed. She knew that Papa had fought for her to come along to Napa as well because he wanted her to see Joseph Harlan again. His family vineyard was in Napa, and Papa had found out from the Harlans that they had returned home from their brief stay in San Francisco the past weekend. Last night at dinner Papa had ordered Santana to come with them so that Joseph would be compelled to court her, but she simply couldn't.

She was angry at her father for not accepting the fact that Joseph simply did not appeal to her in a romantic way, at all. Papa just kept arguing that it was for the best and that she'd grow to care for him, even though she was adamant that she wouldn't. The whole fight made for a tense evening and an even tenser farewell when Papa and Rachel departed the night before.

Santana leaned forward in her chair. The sky was brightening now. She would take a long walk down along the bay and spend the morning straightening out her thoughts. Then, when Papa and Rachel got back, she was going to tell her father that this wedding-bell campaign was a losing battle.

Santana stood up and began to pace. All the young men she had spent time with since they had come to the city, with the exception of Joseph, were more than arrogant—they were pompous. The thought of marrying one of these men, or any at all, made her feel…apathetic. She simply didn't care. _Maybe…_Santana stopped pacing in front of the window, looking out over the city again. _If I hold out on this marriage nonsense long enough, maybe I can convince him that I can run the ranch without a man by my side._ If her father was worried about grandchildren, well, Rachel could provide those for him with whomever Papa approved for her.

Santana's thoughts trailed off. There was an odd scratching sound from outside the door. She stood, astounded, as it swung inward, silhouetting a woman's form against the low-flamed night lights in the hall. She saw a flash of her light braids as she came in and whirled to close the door behind her.

"What are you doing here so early?" Santana asked.

Brittany gasped and turned.

Santana could barely see her face, but she recognized the sweet old-fashioned hair style that had reminded her of her mother, her heart rate increasing ten-fold.

"I am terribly sorry—"

"Don't be," Santana interrupted her. "Did they tell you the room would be empty? My father and sister are gone."

She nodded, a nearly imperceptible movement, and then stood hovering just inside, one hand still on the doorknob.

Not wanting to leave the lovely girl's presence, but also not wanting to come on too strong, Santana smiled softly and said, "If you could just wait a few moments, I will clear out so you won't be bothered, Brittany."

"I'll come back," she said. Her voice was trembling, and Santana noticed for the first time how anxious she looked.

"Is something wrong?"

"It's just—you remember my name?"

She sounded so astonished, as though she was used to being unnoticed and ignored, that Santana smiled warmly at her, her brown eyes gazing deeply into Brittany's blue ones. "I remember everything," she murmured quietly, only realizing what she said after noticing Brittany's shocked expression and the presence of a faint blush on her otherwise pale features. "I-I mean, I remember everything about that day that I asked you for towels…" she quickly amended, feeling foolish and looking everywhere but at the blonde. After a brief second, Santana worked up the courage to look at Brittany. The look of surprise was gone, but it was replaced again with anxiety. The taller girl was visibly trembling. "Are you in some difficulty?" Santana asked her gently.

Brittany took in a quick breath, and answered, but Santana could not hear it. Her words were lost in a long, terrible groaning sound from outside. Stunned, Santana turned slowly to face the open windows. It sounded as though the Earth itself was being wounded. Beneath her feet, the floor jolted to one side, then back. She staggered, wrenching around. Brittany had fallen, and Santana tried to shout to her—to crawl toward her. The floor trembled like a live thing beneath her, and then jolted again. There was another odd groaning sound, as if the bricks were screaming. Brittany looked at her, and she could see the terror in her eyes. Santana began to drag herself across the floor.

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><p><strong>AN: Come on, how many of you thought _that_ was going to happen? ;) That's why I set the story specifically in San Francisco in 1906. I love history. :) Anywho...you're just going to have to wait to see what happens to our favorite couple (who are not really a couple yet) next time! P.S. Finn is absolutely unimportant in this story. I just wanted to add more of him because I hate him so much and wanted to share more of his douchebaggeryness (totally a word) with you. ;) And, he deserves to be alone. Okay, I'm done. Bye!  
><strong>


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Hello! I haven't done this in a while, so I want to say thanks to everyone who has alerted, favorited, reviewed, or even simply read this story! You guys are awesome! :)**

**_wkgreen:_ Haha, I know, so close! No matter. Our two favorite ladies have now been thrown together, and that's the important thing. ;) I hope you like this chapter!**

**_anon:_ Aw, stop. You're making me blush. *blushes* Thanks so much for the review! I'm really glad you like it! I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint! :D**

**Okay, so just a few things on the docket today. First of all, I feel it is necessary to explain this before the story gets any further along. I do not plan on dwelling too much on the "Gasp! I can't love her. She's a _woman!_" thing. There will be a _little _ of that, but it won't be major. I want to focus solely on the fact that they are two people who fall completely in love with one another, social class, sex/gender, et cetera be damned. Okay? Great. :)**

**Next, try not to expect updates to come this quickly in the future. Those of you who have been reading this story from the beginning, or very near the beginning, understand what I'm saying. ;) It's just that I'm in grad school, so I've basically sold my soul to this university for the next three years, haha. I'm only updating so frequently now because it's only the third week of the semester, so my work load isn't too bad. However, come the beginning-middle of February, my life will consist solely of presentations, grading papers and exams, exams and papers of my own, etc, etc. I will still update, just not as frequently as I have been the past couple of weeks. We are only about halfway through this story, so I do ask for your patience. :) I just felt it was necessary to warn you guys, since I know how weird (read: frustrating?) it is to get frequent updates for a few weeks and then to get none for a month or something without any word from the author (not that they're obligated to tell you guys or anything. This is just me). So...yeah. I will try to update as frequently as possible, but updates _will_ get more spaced out the further along in the semester I get. I apologize in advance. :)**

**Umm...I could have sworn there was something else I wanted to say...Nuts. Well, I guess it wasn't important.**

**Anyway, here's chapter 8! I hope you guys enjoy it! :)**

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><p>Will had come into work still half asleep. Finishing after midnight the night before and getting up again at four-thirty had been hard. Thank God he only had one more day of this before he switched to the evening shift for good. His wife had pushed him gently out of bed, and then risen with him to make the fire for his coffee.<p>

He had been a little late getting to the Palace, but the others had covered for him. The coffee urns were steaming and the grills lit, giving off the smell of heated iron. He glanced at the dining room clock. Ten after five. There were still another twenty minutes before the cooks would arrive.

Will checked his section. All his tables were ready. The snowy linen napkins were folded. Ashtrays and cuspidors were in place. All the sugars bowls were full, their little silver spoons turned just so.

The next section over was John's. He was still fussing with the pitchers of chilled cream lined up on his sideboard. Alex and Cameron had the tables along the street windows this morning. Theirs would fill up first. People liked to watch the sidewalk traffic go past while they ate.

Will yawned. "John?"

He looked up. "What?"

"I'm going to catch a catnap on the back room bench. Will you wake me up in about twenty minutes?"

"Sure," John promised, smiling wryly. "Late and early shifts back-to-back are murder."

Will nodded, yawning again.

John laughed. "I'll wake you."

Will mumbled his thanks, and then pushed open the kitchen door. The kitchen was quiet, and would remain so a little while longer. He stretched out on the bench. He closed his eyes, and then quickly opened them again as the bench began to tremble beneath him. Confused, he jumped up amid the clang of falling copper pans crashing on the tiled floor. Then the heaving floor cost him his balance and he lurched sideways, slamming his head against the corner of a wash basin as he fell.

* * *

><p>Brittany was terrified. The nightmare convulsions of the floor and walls battered against her sense of reason. <em>This can't be an earthquake,<em> she kept telling herself, her thoughts shrieking too loudly inside her skull. Earthquakes sometimes rattled the windows a little or shook the dishes in the cupboards for a second or two. This had to be something else entirely. The chandelier was swinging in a wide circle, almost brushing the ceiling.

She struggled to get to her feet and fell again, grasping at the corner of the entryway carpet in a panicked attempt to steady herself. She could hear glass shattering, and an instant later felt a shower of the tiny shards against her cheek. Fighting the weird rise and fall of the floor, she tried to turn aside, but she could not seem to lift herself against the force that shook the building. She collapsed again.

The young woman was suddenly beside her. She pulled Brittany up into a sitting position and they held each other, managing together to stay at least this much upright. Brittany heard her shouting something, but her words were lost in the thunderous roar coming from the street. Somewhere close by there was a woman's scream, shrill, knifing through the other noise. Then—as suddenly as it had begun—the shaking stopped.

Brittany realized that she had closed her eyes; she opened them to find herself pressed against the young woman's chest like a frightened child. The Latina released her, and she leaned back, staring into her dark eyes. They were silent for at least a full minute. Then Brittany watched her pull in a breath and blink.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes." Brittany nodded, slowly, wondering if it was true.

"You're beautiful," she said, shock evident on her flawless face as she shook her head, as though she hadn't meant to say it aloud.

Then the earth buckled and snapped beneath the building, and the nightmare began anew. The big bay window shattered, and Brittany watched it fall, the glow sparkling like a waterfall.

* * *

><p>Marco Lopez had awakened long before dawn, knowing his youngest daughter was going to be furious with him. He looked up at the familiar ceiling beams of his ranch-house bedroom and knew Rachel would awaken in a mansion on Nob Hill where she would be treated as a treasured guest until he returned. But she would be told there was not going to be a trip to Napa. He had left her with very nice people who knew how to keep a young, willful girl out of trouble for a few days while her father took care of business.<p>

His original intention was, indeed, to take both Rachel and Santana up to Napa, but something came up to change that plan indefinitely, and he had little choice. Burt had wired the night before, asking him to come. Two failed wells meant changing pastures, doubling up the herd, and risking losing the grass from over grazing.

So, instead of taking Rachel to Napa, since Santana had adamantly refused to go in the first place, he stopped them at the Chang residence on Nob Hill and left for Oakland during the night shortly after Rachel had gone to sleep. He had tried to come up with alternative solutions, but it had been the only way he could think of to manage a trip home without leaving Rachel unchaperoned in San Francisco with that pomaded mongrel Abrams nosing around her all the time—and without taking Santana home with him. If he had confided in his daughter, it only would have started an entire second argument.

Marco sat up, letting his bare feet touch the cool plank floor. Santana hated the city, that much was obvious, but she would get used to it. She had to. That was where the future was—not out here in cattle country.

"Santana," Marco said to the darkness that clung in pools along the ceiling beams. "If I'd thought I could bring you along, and then convince you to go back, I'd have done it." Marco stood up, easing his weight onto his left leg. It took a while to limber his bad knee up in the mornings. The house was quiet, and it irritated him. _The children will soon be gone,_ Marco reminded himself. _So you had better get used to it._

An odd vibration beneath his feet interrupted his thoughts. _Earthquake_, he thought and sat very still as the vibration amplified into a tremble, and then into a rocking motion that made the windows rattle in their frames. He tried to stand, but his knee gave way and he slid to the floor. He could feel the bedboard grind against his back. Rolling forward, he sprawled onto the floor. Then the shaking faded.

Before Marco could get up, there was a second shock. It lasted less time, but the floor rose and fell so hard that he wondered if the house would be shaken from its foundation.

When the earth settled back into stillness, Marco stood up, hoping that Rachel had not been able to feel it in the city. Earthquakes scared her.

* * *

><p>Santana had managed to stand up, and was trying to drag Brittany to her feet. They had to get out of the building. <em>Now.<em> She could almost feel the weight of the floors above them and imagined the walls buckling, collapsing. How could any structure withstand this? She could see the Chronicle Building across the street. It was weaving madly, swaying back and forth like a behemoth red-brick tree trunk in some nightmare windstorm. Just audible over the weird roaring was the rising shrill of screams and shouts from the street below. She heard a horse squeal in pain and fear.

A cascade of shattered mortar fell past the gaping hole where the bay window had been. A thunderous roaring was coming now from the street below, and the insane shaking continued on. Santana fell, twisting in midair so she wouldn't hurt the beautiful young woman who clung to her hand as if Santana could help her. She wished she could. She wanted to more than anything in the world, but she could not stay on her feet. Every time she tried, the earth was pulled out from beneath her.

Santana closed her eyes, holding the stunning girl close, breathing in the soft flowered scent of her soap, unable to do more. Gradually, the shaking subsided into a gentle rolling motion, and then disappeared entirely. The stillness was sudden…and it felt strange.

"Is it over?" the young woman whispered against her neck. Santana could feel Brittany's breath on her skin, and then the blonde pushed back and straightened up, turning her head aside. Santana saw a flush spread across her cheeks, and realized that she had been holding her as tightly as any lover ever would. Santana rocked back on her heels and stood, this time managing to pull Brittany with her.

"Is it? Is it over now?"

"I think so." The Latina let three seconds tick past, and then four, five, six…then exhaled. "Oh, God, I do think so."

There was complete joy in her voice, and she felt electrified. Brittany lifted her chin and giggled. "I feel like I have just been born. Is that silly?" She began to cry. Then she giggled again.

"It isn't silly," Santana said and was surprised at how reasonable she sounded. "But this no time for tears. We should be celebrating!" She took one step to the side, laughing aloud, and both of them swayed, facing each other as they curtsied. Santana pulled her along in a clown-waltz, and Brittany laughed, tilting her head back, her throat white and warm. Breathless and giddy, Santana whirled her around, stumbling over falling clothing, her boots crunching over broken glass. Swinging her hard enough to lift her feet from the ground, Santana stumbled and they sprawled sideward onto the bed.

Brittany was still laughing, her eyes nearly closed. _Her lips are perfect_, the brunette heard herself thinking. _As smooth as rose petals_. Their laughter rebounded off the walls. Then it faded a little, just enough for both girls to hear the voices from the street again.

They stood up, still staring intently into each other's eyes, as their reason rushed back. "We should get out of the building," Santana said, her breaths coming quick from the exertion of their activities. From the hallway, a shout rang out. There was a muffled thudding against the door, and then more voices. "The lifts might not be working."

"I know a way," the chambermaid answered. Her cheeks were still flushed with the giddy joy of being alive after the end of the world. Then she glanced toward the window, and Santana saw her pale.

"What is it?"

"Look at the fog. It's the oddest color. Yellowish. Or is that smoke?"

They walked to the window and looked downward. The street was invisible. "I think it's dust," Santana told her. Then they turned to face one another. "Well, I think it's time we were properly introduced. It's been a pleasure to meet you, Brittany Pierce," Santana said with a warm smile.

Santana's smile grew when she noticed Brittany's cheeks redden as she fumbled with her coat. Santana saw for the first time how threadbare it was. The maid followed her gaze and began to fiddle with her buttons, lowering her eyes as she put her hands in her pockets. "And you are Miss…?"

"Santana Lopez," she said quickly, mentally slapping herself for forgetting to tell the other woman her name previously. "Please call me Santana," she added, boldly looking into Brittany's sparkling blue eyes.

Brittany blushed again, her cheeks coloring prettily. Though Santana's hair was largely in place, due to the simple style in which she wore it—half pinned up and the rest cascading down her back—Brittany's braids had come free of the pins that held them in place and she was struggling to arranged them again. Santana gestured at the bathroom, and then stepped back to let her pass, taking in the room as she watched the blonde cross it. The walls were roughened with exploded patches of plaster. The paintings had either fallen or hung crookedly. The chandelier had crashed to the floor.

Brittany turned into the bathroom, and Santana heard her make a little sound of disappointment—then she remembered the sounds of shattering glass.

"The mirror?"

Brittany appeared in the doorway, her braids hanging down her back now. "And the wash basin and the shelves. All the glass is in pieces." She looked around the room, and the Latina saw panic coming into her eyes that mirrored her own anxiety. There was a scream in the hallway, and then the sound of someone sobbing. Brittany glanced toward the door and then back at her.

Santana could imagine her thoughts. Her job was gone, perhaps much more. She tried to keep her voice calm as her own thoughts raced to the ranch. Everyone there should be all right, she told herself. Even a strong shake wouldn't do more than scare the stock and shift the cabin on its foundations a bit.

"Where do you live?" Brittany asked her suddenly, as though she had read her thoughts.

"On a ranch half a day's ride northeast of Oakland," Santana told her. At that instant there was a thumb on the door and someone cried out. Brittany got an odd look in her eyes.

"Oh, my dear God," she said in a near whisper that the brunette could barely hear above the growing clamor of voices in the hall. "Mrs. Sylvester is all alone, except for Mr. Puckerman." Brittany started for the door. "My landlady. I have to get back there. I—she's _old_. She'll be frantic."

"I'll go with you," Santana said impulsively. "My father and sister are in Napa by now. It'll take Papa hours to get back here, even if the trains are running. I'll make sure your Mrs. Sylvester is safe, and you, and then…" Her voice trailed off, and she had no idea what to say next, but it didn't seem to matter. The lovely Brittany was nodding gratefully, starting toward the door. Santana followed her, and then reached past her to open it.

The instant she did, the screams and voices that had seemed distant through the solid wood were suddenly close. The hall was jammed with people, some shouting, some weeping, some shoving along huge trunks that blocked the way. Santana heard a child crying. Somewhere in the crush a small dog was yapping in a steady sharp rhythm.

Santana pushed her way into the crowd, reaching back to give Brittany her hand. She took it without hesitation, her grasp quick and strong.

* * *

><p>Arthur Abrams had been one of the first people out of the building. He had been awake and half-dressed, intending to get an early start. He had a dozen things to do before he met Rachel at noon. He needed a haircut and a shave. And he had an appointment to get fitted for another suit—which meant he needed to make a quick visit to the maid's boardinghouse to get enough homemade money to cover it—and a small gambling debt he had incurred the night before.<p>

Arthur shook his head. He had to stop playing poker. He was going to need every bit of the counterfeit he had bought, and probably more, to pull this off. Old man Lopez had sharp eyes and he would spot the first sign of anything but genuine class, Arthur knew. He wished he could take Marco aside and assure him that he would make Rachel very happy. The only thing he lacked was real money—and sincerity. Otherwise, he was a perfect catch. And once he had backing, any one of his scheme would stand a good chance of success.

The first shock of the quake had scared Arthur. The second had made him furious. He had never been closer to realizing his lifelong ambition of becoming what he wanted to be—not a tailor's son from a little Missouri town no one had ever heard of, but a businessman from San Francisco. Once the damn floor stopped bucking beneath his feet, he pulled on his boots and his coat and headed for the elevators. Amazingly, they were still working.

Now, he shoved his way to the front of the crowd in the lobby, and then blundered out onto the street, coughing in the heavy dust. He thought quickly, and then set off toward Sixth Street. He needed the money packet even more urgently now. The hotel was a wreck. He pictured the old boardinghouse and kicked at a loose brick lying on the sidewalk. If it had collapsed…He clenched his fists and kicked at another brick. It spiraled across the sidewalk.

Arthur started down the street, stepping over a hillock of cobblestones that had buckled under the pressure of the earthquake. People were spilling from the doorways of the Grand Hotel across the street as well as from the Palace behind him. Half of them weren't dressed properly. Many of the women were crying. One or two that he passed were completely hysterical, screaming and sobbing while their husbands tried to comfort them.

Just past the Grand, a line of four men sat side by side on the curb, all silent but one. He was laughing, his eyes streaming with tears of mirth. His companions kept glancing at him, their grim faces streaked with dust.

"Hey! Hey, Mister!" Arthur felt a tub at his sleeve and he turned to see a woman carrying one child and leading another. "Will you help me, please, Mister?"

"Where are you going?" he shouted at her.

"Back home," she answered, pointing down Market Street toward Sixth Street. "I was at my sister's, but I can't carry them both and I have to find out if my husband—"

"I'll carry this one," Arthur said, stooping to scoop up the taller child, a boy with wide brown eyes and a stunned look on his face. The woman shot him a look of pure gratitude. "Let's go," he said impatiently. She nodded and gathered up her crying toddler.

Arthur led off, walking fast. He glanced back twice as he threaded a path across the street. She was keeping up. Good. He had no intention of slowing down. He walked a little faster, keeping a firm grip on the boy he was carrying. The boy was in shock, and when he came to his sense he might squirm like a fish.

The cobblestones had been shoved up in places, dislodged and scattered. The big triple-globed street lights were mostly broken. Arthur could smell gas leaking from the pipes beneath them and saw broken electric wires sparking and snapping.

A block up, across from the Luka Building, Arthur heard a policeman shouting at people to stay calm. He was stopping people as they walked past, asking them where they were going. Out of habit, Arthur stepped into the street, disappearing into the milling crowd, making his way around the policeman. He glanced back only once, to see the woman right behind him.

The boy in Arthur's arms picked that instant to begin to scream and twist, crying for his mother.

"Just a minute, son," Arthur said between his teeth, wanting to get well past the policeman. "Just hold on."

"Let me talk to him," the woman said from behind Arthur.

He turned to her. "Lady, I'll help you, but we have to keep going now. I can't wait."

She reached out and touched her son's cheek and spoke a few soothing words.

"Straight down this way?" Arthur asked, jutting his chin to indicate the direction.

The woman nodded. "Yes, yes. We live at Sixth and Howard."

Arthur nodded to show that he had heard her and then started off, cursing himself. This was stupid. Someone else would have helped her. And she was only going to slow him down. He was betting on the old woman still being alone—and that the house would still be standing. If either turned out not to be true, things were going to get much more difficult.

He imagined himself in his dandy's suit and his fancy boots, trying to work his way unnoticed through a crowd of milling workingmen, rousted out of bed by the earthquake. Then he pictured his hidden packet buried under a ton of rotten wood and musty wall boards and he shuddered. Given the choice of what would be worse, he would take the crowd.

The boy started crying again, and Arthur began to whistle—not to calm the child, but to calm himself—a soft, almost tuneless sound drowned out by the pandemonium in the street.

* * *

><p>Mrs. Sylvester had not felt the first shake. The second one had brought her up out of bed, her heartbeat a thin, pulsing thread in her chest. She was frightened, but there was a strange curiosity behind her fear. Was this how she was going to die, after all these years of living? An earthquake?<p>

She lay back down in her bed, and did not even cover her face when the ceiling plaster began to give way. It hit close enough to spatter her cheek with white dust, and still she did not flinch. But she prayed, her lips moving slowly, her whisper no more harsh or hurried than on any other morning of the world. When the shaking stopped, she struggled to sit up.

Coughing in irritating clouds of plaster dust, Mrs. Sylvester made her way out of her bedroom, pausing only to put on her housecoat and to notice that her floor was now slanted. The house was not safe, she knew, but she padded upstairs anyway, climbing each step with effort and pain. Mr. Puckerman lay still in his bed, his normally caramel complexion nearly ivory, his eyes wide open. She pulled his sheet over his face and left him, going from his room to Mr. Evans', and then to Mr. Tanaka's. They were gone, and she said a prayer for their safety and checked to see that their hearths were cold. Then she went up to the third floor. In Brittany's room she plucked three glowing coals from the carpet and carried water from the bathroom in a glass that had fallen into the sink but somehow had not broken. When the smoking carpet was saturated, Mrs. Sylvester went slowly back down the tilted hallway.

The commode was cracked and water was running onto the floor—and that was probably just the beginning of the damage, she knew. The slanted floor meant the old house had slipped off its foundation. Nearly sixty years it had stood here; now it was likely ruined forever.

Mrs. Sylvester made her way slowly back down the stairs to her bedroom and dressed carefully, donning three waists, one atop the other. She did not want to get cold tonight, wherever she ended up. Then she went to the backyard, going down the tilting porch steps carefully and slowly, her knee aching fiercely.

Standing unsteadily in her dusty backyard, Mrs. Sylvester started to open the chicken coop door, and then hesitated. If she let the rooster out with the hens, they might all take off and never come back. They were just about as scared and jumbled as they would ever be today, squawking and climbing over each other and pressing up against the wooden slats.

Decisively, Mrs. Sylvester pulled the latch and the chickens exploded into the yard, feathers flying. She sighed as the hens grouped themselves around the rooster, sidling close as though they expected him to protect them from any further danger. They would almost certainly be gone before dark, either lost or stolen. But she couldn't leave them cooped up. It would be a death sentence.

Mrs. Sylvester raised her head and pulled in a long breath of the dusty air. She couldn't smell smoke yet. But it would come. She had lived through two terrible fires, or three, really, if she counted the one when she had still been a baby. Her mother had told her about it so many times it was almost like she remembered it herself. She had never wanted to live through another one.

Mrs. Sylvester started back into her house, walking in short, careful steps. Maybe if she left this instant, she could outrun what she knew was coming. She thought of all the bakery ovens and blacksmith shops, the fireplaces and cookstoves that had been jolted. There were red coals lying on living room rugs and oaken floors and shop planks everywhere right now.

There would be fire.

It was simply a matter of _when_.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Dun, dun, duuuunnnn! Hehe, I like doing that. ;) Anyway, yeah, so, the rest of the chapters (or most, at least) will have various POV's throughout, so, be prepared! ;) Anywho, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I shall be back with Chapter 9 sometime in the near future. ;P  
><strong>


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Hello!**

**Real quick. I got an e-mail from a student in the class that I TA for yesterday _during_ class, asking me what they're supposed to do for the paper that is due Friday. They even said that they don't know what they're supposed to read for it. Um...on the prompt, it says that the students have to read and use _Prometheus Bound, _the _The__ogony_, and _Works and Days_ (all Greek myth works). Did this student even _read_ the prompt? Because, I'm thinking that's a resounding _no_. *Sigh* This is a college course, right? Sorry. Had to share that one. It was quite amusing (and depressing).  
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**Anyway, I had the _worst_ time with this chapter. I apologize if it's horrible. I'm just...I'm tired of looking at it. And obsessing over it. Well, I hope you guys enjoy it, at least!  
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* * *

><p>Brittany looked past Santana. The hallway was packed with frantic people. Santana tightened her grip on Brittany's hand. "The elevators have to be overcrowded," she said over her shoulder. "You said you know a way?"<p>

Brittany nodded. "There's the stairs," she pointed. "Or the service elevators—but they let out in the basement." She didn't want to get into the narrow service lifts just now. She did not want to go _underground_.

The brunette nodded and seemed to understand without her saying any more. Brittany followed her into the hallway. There were people in all states of undress. Some wept, others were still laughing, as she and Santana had done. _Beautiful_, she had called her. Brittany glanced back at her. Her beautiful face was somber now, and anxious.

Santana caught her staring at her and leaned forward to be heard over the noise. "Are you all right, Brittany?"

She nodded. The Latina seemed so very kind. Her beau or husband-to-be was a lucky man. And there was a suitor or a fiancée, almost certainly, Brittany reminded herself. Even if there weren't, Brittany knew the laws. She knew that the feelings the stunning woman grasping onto her hand invoked in her were considered wrong, _evil_, by society—but she couldn't stop the way her heart rate sped up and her stomach churned at the simple contact between their hands.

Brittany shook her head. Whatever it was that she may have thought she was feeling for the smaller woman was not important. Even if the laws were different, people of Santana's class regarded girls like her as trash, as Mercedes said. _You will do well to remember that_, Brittany told herself.

"Is that the stairwell?" Santana leaned close again to gesture.

Brittany nodded. With Santana in the lead, both girls made their way around a pile of trunks that nearly blocked the hallway. No one stood near them; they seemed to have been abandoned.

Santana released her grip on Brittany's hand to open the door. There were a few people on the service stairs and the sounds of their footsteps echoed. Santana took her hand again, and they started downward side by side.

Settling into a quick-step rhythm to match Santana's, Brittany felt the journal against her thigh. She put her free hand in her coat pocket to hold it still. Maybe she should just give it to her now, and explain what she had done. But when the blonde maid glanced at her, her face was tensed and strained. She was probably worrying about her family, perhaps about her sweetheart. Maybe she even had a husband. Brittany wished she could just ask—then chided herself for wishing it.

As they slowed behind and older couple, Santana shot her a look, and then a quick smile as the old man tenderly put his arm around his wife. Brittany felt a strange hollowness in her heart. _Why, oh why couldn't Santana be a groceryman or a bricklayer? Why does she have to be a woman—someone who will never really be able to see me?_

She felt the stairs beneath her feet tremble and wasn't sure if the earth had moved or if it was simply the pounding weight of the crowd. Then it came again, and she caught her breath, praying to live, willing the low ceiling to hold, afraid that it would suddenly collapse, that her life was about to end. The moments passed and nothing happened.

Santana squeezed her hand. "Are you all right?"

Brittany looked at her, and then nodded.

"Are you really? You're very pale."

She nodded again. "I'm not hurt, just scared."

The brunette smiled. Her dark eyes were so intense that Brittany looked away. _Could it be that she feels the same way? Preposterous. It's probably just the adrenaline from the earthquake._ Brittany stared ahead of them again, picking their way through the crowd. Santana held her hand tightly.

_I do feel safe with her_, Brittany found herself thinking. Then she shuddered, remembering how she had felt about Arthur. _All right,_ she promised herself. _I know how to end this little infatuation of hers, if that's what this even is. If we talk at all, I won't hide a thing—not the orphanage, not the years living like a wharf rat._ She crossed herself and swore the childhood oath, and suddenly she felt freer than she ever had. This woman would not care for her when she heard her story. She wouldn't even _like_ her. Brittany was finally free of her illusions.

They rounded a landing, and they passed the people who were coming onto the stairs from the second floor. When they finally stepped onto the ground-floor platform, most of the people were turning right, toward the lobby.

"Which way now?" Santana asked, looking up into her face.

Brittany pointed into the long hall lined with storerooms. Santana nodded, and they stepped out of line. Santana let Brittany guide her to the door that led out into the maze of service halls behind the kitchen. She hurried, turning up the long passage that ran past the offices behind the lobby. She could have gotten out by a shorter route, but she didn't want to emerge onto Montgomery Street. She wanted to be able to go straight down Market Street to Sixth. At the door, Santana gently held her back and went out first, holding out her hand. "Stay close to me," she said quietly.

Brittany nodded absentmindedly, unable to speak, staring at the dust-choked nightmare of the street. It was now full of rubble. A woman sat sobbing just outside the door. The man beside her was talking in a low, comforting voice. A kitten was running through the fallen bricks, and Brittany could only stare as a child picked it up and went on, following after an old woman in her nightgown.

"It's like a war," Santana breathed out, seemingly as affected by the scene as Brittany. "My grandfather was in Savannah with Grant when they took the city. He described it…like this." Her gesture took in everything—the roiling dust, the screaming babe in its mother's arms, a carthorse lying crushed beneath shattered cornice stone that had fallen from the façade of the Grand Hotel across the street. Its eyes had rolled back wide open. One of its hind legs jutted up at an unnatural angle, its hock turned like a broken toy.

People were milling in circles, some silent, some screaming. Brittany watched a woman rush out of the door behind them. She ran four or five steps, and then stopped staring wildly. No one seemed to know where to go. There was a confusion of noise and dust that was almost impossible to bear. Brittany could see bluish sparks on the ground near a tumble of white stone. Of course, she realized. Electric lights were down. And there was the oddest odor in the dust-filled air—something sharp. It reminded Brittany of the creosote Mrs. Sylvester had out in her shed. She used it to swab her chicken coop to kill feather lice.

"Oh, my God," Santana said quietly, and Brittany turned. There, among the dazed crowds, were two longhorn bulls galloping ponderously through the rubble that filled Market Street. Whatever feedlot or railroad corral they had escaped from, they were free and dangerous now.

Brittany watched the massive animals charging toward them. For some reason she was not afraid, although she knew she should be. She stepped backward, Santana moving beside her, her hand tight on Brittany's arm. "Don't make a sound and move slowly," she mumbled evenly. Brittany let her guide her backward as the animals slowed where the bricks and fallen mortar were the worst. They trotted heavily past, close enough to touch, swinging their pitchfork-sharp horns, bawling in fear and confusion. People seemed not to notice them until the animals were close. Then they jumped back, startled.

As Brittany watched, a man carrying a sales agent's case started across the street in front of the animals, his head down, almost running. Brittany stepped forward, but Santana stopped her, leaning close to her ear to be heard. "Stay back, they could—"

A bellow from one of the bulls cut her off, and Brittany held her breath as it charged the sales agent, lowering its head to hook the stunned man with one long horn. Lifting its head without effort, the bull tossed him into the air without breaking stride. It lumbered on, its companion lunging into a thunderous gallop to catch up.

Without exchanging a word, Brittany and Santana ran toward the fallen man. A trickle of blood ran from his temple as he stood up. He was white as a sheet, but miraculously seemed otherwise uninjured. "That was a bull?"

It was a question. Brittany nodded, and Santana started to explain. Not listening, the man excused himself and started across the street—but he had lost his bearings and was going back the way he had come. Santana called out to him, and he turned and waved once, and then went one, disappearing into the dust and rubble.

Santana turned toward Brittany, a question in her eyes. "I have to go that way," Brittany said, pointing at the mob scene that had once been Market Street. The idea of taking even a single step away from Santana frightened her. But she knew she had to hurry home. Mrs. Sylvester might be hurt.

Santana smiled. It looked out of place on her ashen face. "I couldn't live with myself if I left you to go on your own."

She sounded so polite, so _charitable_, that Brittany shook her head and let go of the Latina's arm. "I will be fine, miss. I am quite used to being on my own, and I—"

"I'm sure you are," Santana interrupted firmly. "This way?"

Dumbfounded, Brittany nodded hesitantly as Santana started out, reaching for her hand. Brittany let the brunette lead her along, grateful that she was there, grateful that she was too courteous to simply go on about her own concerns.

Since they were already halfway across the street, Santana set them out on a diagonal course through the mounds of rubble that angled toward the towering Chronicle Building. It looked odd, Brittany thought, staring up the block at it. Before she could figure out what was wrong, the ground began to tremble under her feet again.

The jumble of voices stopped as though someone had closed a door on a riot. Santana pulled her close, holding her so tightly that it hurt. Brittany glanced up at the Crocker Building, and then at the Grand and the Palace Hotels. The architectural behemoths towered above them, each one made of tons of brick and stone.

The tremble rose in intensity, then subsided, and then the ground was still again. All around them, people began to move and talk once more. Santana loosened her grip on her. Then she grinned at her and Brittany grinned back. It was an echo of the mad relief they had felt before, she knew.

Santana leaned up and kissed her cheek, softly, happily. Brittany looked into her beautiful face and envied the person who would receive this kind of kiss from her their whole life. The Latina smiled again, and Brittany understood her perfectly. Death had passed them by again. Santana released her, and she reluctantly stepped back.

* * *

><p>Rachel had awoken with a jolt, hearing screams in the distance as she jackknifed into a sitting position. Something metallic was rattling in the darkness above her. The night seemed to close in from all sides, and she could not understand what was happening, or even remember where she was. She cried out when something struck her cheek—then ducked sideways, falling out of bed.<p>

The floor was heaving up and down like waves beneath a boat. She crawled along, falling and struggling until she gave up and lay still, clutching a wad of cloth in one hand and the leg of a piece of furniture with the other.

When the shaking stopped, her mind stilled with it and she could only shiver and shudder, dragging in one slow breath, and then the next. The second shock shifted the floor beneath her so violently that she was rolled over and found herself staring upward into the darkness. The house creaked and moaned, tortured by the unfathomable strength of the shifting earth.

Rachel tried to roll back over to protect her face, but her whole body was being tossed like a doll in the hands of an angry child. Her shoulder slammed into something, and she curled away from the pain, bringing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them, losing her grip and floundering to one side. Then, suddenly, the shock eased and the floor stopped moving.

Trembling so hard that she could not stand at first, Rachel got to her feet, falling twice on things she couldn't see. Balanced precariously at last, she felt her way back to the bed and sat on the edge of it, breathing hard. She could hear people calling to each other in the darkness, but she still had no idea who they were.

Abruptly, she remembered the ranch, and then the Palace Hotel…as her mind clicked into focus. These were some of Papa's Nob Hill friends, the…Changs? Langs? Something like that. Her heart was hammering in her chest. This was the worst earthquake she had ever been through. All she wanted was Papa's warm hands on her shoulders, his comforting voice. She began to cry.

"Miss Lopez?" It was a male voice, the smooth tenor of her host. Chang. That was it. Mr. Michael Chang.

"I'm here," Rachel answered, her voice stiff and unwieldy in her tight throat. She shivered and felt a rise of gooseflesh on her arms and the back of her neck. Was it cold?

"Are you hurt?"

"I don't think so," Rachel responded. She wriggled her toes and straightened her legs, and then touched her face. If she had been cut, it wasn't bleeding much.

"Stay where you are and I will find a light." There was the sound of retreating footsteps, and then a sound of annoyance and the crash of shattering glass.

Rachel was alone in the darkness. She hugged herself. Where was Papa now? She had been so angry with him for leaving, and even more so for the way he had done it—as though she were a five-year-old to be deceived. He had thought to slip off without her noticing, but she had seen the carriage go and pleaded with Mrs. Chang until she relented and explained the whole stupid plan. Mrs. Chang had not said, but Rachel knew exactly why her father had done it. He didn't like Arthur Abrams.

Well, Papa was safe and sound, no doubt. He ought to have made it back to the ranch the evening before, if he rode hard enough—and he probably had. He would have come back to get her as soon as he was able, she was sure. Now, he would be back even sooner.

Unless, of course, the tremor had been worse to the east and the house had fallen in on him. And what about Santana and Arthur? Had the Palace weathered the shock? Rachel winced, worry crowding close, cold company in the dark.

There was a flicker of a candle in the hall. "Are you all right, dear?" came a kindly female voice.

"Yes, Mrs. Chang."

"Oh, my Lord," the older woman said, making her way into the room.

Rachel shivered again, seeing what had startled Mrs. Chang. The heavy armoire that had stood against the wall the night before had somehow moved across the room—and fallen squarely across the bed. If she hadn't gotten out of the way when she did, Rachel realized, it might have killed her.

"We are meeting in the kitchen," Mrs. Chang was saying as she lit a second candle and handed it to Rachel. "Dress, dear, and then join us please. We must figure out what to do."

Rachel nodded meekly, but she hoped they had no plans to leave the city. If they did, she was not going with them. Papa would come here looking for her, she was sure. And besides, she was not going anywhere until she was sure that her sister and Arthur were all right.

* * *

><p>The wide sky overhead was sunny and clear. Marco Lopez's black gelding was jittery, dancing like every other horse on the Lopez ranch. Marco fought the big animal around in a circle, making decisions as quick as the seconds ticked past. Burt, his longtime friend and foreman, was about half awake. He had been the only one to sleep through the shake. Once Burt was awake, Marco knew, he was one of the most capable cowmen in the country, but he was not quick in his thinking. This was not a time for long deliberation. It was a time for action.<p>

Marco stood in his stirrups and began to shout at the milling cowboys. "Jake and Ben, ride the fence line north to Shapiro's place, and then across to the hills. If that much is tight, come back home for bed. If not, start repairs and someone will find you to bring you some beans for supper. Or breakfast."

"On our way, Boss," Ben called out and turned his wild-eyed roan toward the gate. Jake cantered after him, fighting to keep his big gray mare from bolting. Her shoulders were already dark with sweat.

Marco scanned the remaining faces. "Matt and Pedro. The calf barn. If no one was fool enough to leave a lantern burning, it will be all right, I think. After that, go see the shepherd that has the herd up on the foothills—what's his name?"

"Frank O'Malley," someone sang out.

"O'Malley," Marco repeated. "You make sure he's all right. If he isn't, one of you stay, and the other one ride that side watching for strays, circling around back toward home."

Two more horses galloped out of the yard, and dust rose in the early sunlight—then three at once, and then three more pairs. When the men were off in every direction, Marco jabbed his finger at Burt. "You run this place until I get back."

Burt nodded. "It'll all be here when you bring them both home. I'm just sorry I wired you at all, Marco."

Marco waved Burt's apology aside, and then turned his horse westward. He cursed his decision to separate his children and then leave them. Burt could have handled the damned failed wells. He could have moved the cattle to different pastures.

Letting his gelding flatten out and gallop headlong, Marco sat his saddle tight, lifting one hand to settle his hat. Marco knew the truth; he just hated to admit it to himself. He got every bit as tired of the city and city folks as his daughter did. He had just wanted to come home for a few days, and he'd used Burt's telegram as an excuse.

Marco rode hard, and he was glad to be riding alone. Tears were streaming down his face.

If anything happened to Santana or Rachel…


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Hey, guys!**

_**dagleek:**_** Aw, thanks. I try. *looks away bashfully* Well, I guess that depends on what kind of Brittana you want. Maybe this chapter will hold you over for a little bit? :) Oh, and to your P.S. Haha, that they do. The thing I find funny is that apparently some students think that the TAs don't _know_ that the undergrad students are trying to take advantage of them (intentionally or not). The student who e-mailed me was clearly trying to get me to do his paper for him, as if I'm dumb enough to tell him exactly what to write in the paper. I mean, I'm all for helping, but come on...I guess he gets an "A" for trying? ;)**

**Anyway...here's a new chapter for you guys. I hope you enjoy it! :)**

* * *

><p>Will came to slowly. Standing made his head hurt, and he swayed on his feet. There were no voices close by, but he could hear muted shouting from somewhere. He rubbed his face with both hands, and they came away bloody. Gingerly he searched for the cut and found it just along his hairline. He went to the little mirror in the water closet. It was broken, but only half of it had fallen to the floor, smashed to silvery dust. He bent forward to look. The cut wasn't bad. He turned on the faucet to wash up, and the water gushed, and then failed.<p>

Turning around, Will saw that the towels had fallen to the floor, the shelf collapsed. He reached for one and brought it up, intending to wipe his face. Then he saw a sparkle in the fabric at the last instant and lowered it. It was full of glass shattered so fine it was like sugar. He looked up. The light fixture had fallen.

Will stumbled out of the bathroom and looked around the kitchen, his thoughts spinning. No water. They couldn't open without water. So it hadn't just been a rock blast at the quarry up on Telegraph Hill. He set down the towel slowly and headed for the front door of the restaurant.

"Excuse me?" someone said from behind him. "We are asking all help to stay. We have several hundred guests who have nowhere to go tonight, and their rooms are turned inside out."

Will turned around to see a heavyset man he recognized vaguely. Someone from the office behind the lobby. "I have a wife and two children," Will began, preparing himself to argue.

"Then you must go home sir, and quickly," the man said. He turned and went out through a side door.

Will watched him go, astounded, and then pushed through the swinging doors into the dining room. He stumbled, astonished at what he was seeing. All the windows were broken along the street. He could see frantic crowds outside, people going every which way—or simply standing and staring. The noise was unbelievable. People were shouting in five or six languages.

Will gathered his wits and made his way out the doors. He turned up Montgomery Street and began to run. If the brick and stone buildings had come down, what had happened to the wooden houses up on Dupont Street and California Street? His wife would be frantic, he was sure—she had a hard time handling messes—and his kids terrified.

It was difficult going, zigzagging around people pulling their children's toy wagons filled with their goods, people crying—some of them hysterically. One woman sat on the curb in front of a collapsed house, weeping as if her whole family had been inside. Will didn't ask. He didn't want to know.

The hills got steeper, but he forced himself to keep running, stumbling to a halt only when an automobile came barreling around a corner, the driver wearing goggles and a dashing scarf. A man dressed in military clothes sat beside him, pointing and shouting.

Will stood, gasping for breath as the careening vehicle went past. Then he glanced down the hill at the city below. It was unbelievable. Half the town had been destroyed, it looked like. He could see City Hall in the distance. This side of the front façade had collapsed. Only the metal on the dome shone in the morning sun as usual. The rest of it looked like a giant birdcage of steel girders. He straightened, still breathing hard but about to turn and go on, when something else caught his eye.

Out in the Mission district, there was a thin plume of smoke rising skyward.

Will began to run again.

* * *

><p>Brittany had taken the lead, and Santana let her lead her down an alleyway to skirt the worst of the wreckage on Market, and then followed as she cut back to the street through a narrow path separating two tall buildings. Through the shattered ground-floor windows Santana could hear men arguing about a damaged printing press—glimpses of the machinery told her that the building housed a newspaper.<p>

It was astonishing how quickly Brittany walked, Santana realized, how little the rubble seemed to trouble her. The brunette had released her hand when it had become impossible to maneuver through the wreckage any way but single file. Santana now walked behind the blonde who was quickly finding a place in her heart, watching her make her way through the chaos as fast as any man could have done. The diminutive Latina had to push herself to keep up with the taller girl. Brittany's white-linen hemline was darkening with street dust, but Santana did not once see her bend down to examine it. She hadn't cried, either, Santana realized, following her around a pile of brick and mats of woven wire embedded in shattered slabs of cement. Or screamed. Not once.

Santana found herself wondering if the remarkable woman in front of her could ride, but knew the blonde would think that she was insane if she asked such a question at a time like this. She shook her head, admitting to herself that she would certainly have a point. But Santana wanted to know, desperately. She had been fascinated with the chambermaid from the first time she had seen her through the door, she just never allowed herself to consider whether she could love someone her father was sure to disapprove of. She was pretty sure that she could. Santana looked at Brittany's straight back and lovely neck. She wanted to know everything about her. She wanted to meet her parents.

"This way," Brittany said, half turning to make sure Santana had heard her. The blonde was gesturing toward another narrow passage between two huge buildings. The side of her face was smudged with dirt. Her hair was a mess, the two loose braids disappearing beneath the collar of her coat. And she was beautiful. Santana stared at her, mesmerized.

"What, Santana? I can go alone if you—"

"Can you ride?" She couldn't believe she had actually asked. Santana watched her eyebrows rise, two perfect arches. She looked as amazed by the question as she had imagined she might. Then Brittany frowned and looked straight into her eyes.

"When I was ten I passed myself off as an exercise boy. I worked for nearly three years out at Ingleside track." She paused, her chin raised high and proud. Then she took a deep breath. "I slept in spare stalls."

Santana was shocked as much by the cold, angry tone in her voice as by what she had said. She stepped back, her left foot half hitting a brick and throwing her off balance.

Brittany waited until she had righted herself. "I can go on alone from here," she said, in the same sharp voice. "I thank you for—"

"An exercise boy?" Santana interrupted her a second time, positive that she had heard her incorrectly. "Surely, you must be joking?"

Brittany was blushing, a fierce, wonderful pink spreading across her cheeks. Then she whirled and was walking fast, disappearing into the passageway. Santana hurried to follow, looking upward, disconcerted by the closeness of the walls. The sky was a bluish-brown slit above their heads. The dust was hanging heavily in the air.

Without warning, Brittany spun around. The brunette barely managed to keep from bumping into her, and scraped her shoulder on the building, arrested by the maid's direct cobalt eyes. Brittany stood and faced her for a long moment. "Is something—" the Latina began.

"I was the best," she said pointedly, cutting the other girl off. "The best they ever had, Paddy said. They only made me quit because he got drunk and told someone that I was a girl."

Santana looked into her angry eyes and could only nod. Brittany lowered her head. Santana wanted to touch her, to hold her, to tell her that whatever had made her so angry, she would straighten it out, smooth it over somehow. If Brittany missed riding, she could give her a horse and they could go riding together…But before she could shape her impulse into coherent speech, the blonde had turned away from her again, the hem of her coat swinging with her steps. Santana hurried to catch up, distracted from the full impact of her words by the madhouse noise of the crowds, the stinging dust.

As they emerged from the narrow passage, Santana saw a new expanse of ruin. The city around them was like a kicked anthill. People filled the streets, shoving past each other, going in opposite directions, streaming around an overturned wagon, the horse dead in the traces.

"That way," Brittany said hollowly, pointing.

Santana took the lead again, as the crowds thickened around them, holding her hand tightly to make sure that nothing separated them.

* * *

><p>Arthur set the boy down and half-listened to the woman's thanks. She had taken him only two blocks out of his way. Her husband, she assured him, would soon be back to find them. This, she pointed at a pile of rubble that slanted from a height of about fifteen feet at its apex to a few inches deep at the curb of Howard Street, was their home.<p>

Arthur nodded vaguely when he realized that the woman had stopped talking. Then he walked away, shouldering past a group of people standing in the middle of the street, his thoughts on the hidden packet of counterfeit money. If it was gone, he was going to have to change strategies—and fast. Rachel might pity a man down on his luck, but her father definitely would not. He cursed the earthquake. Why did something like this have to happen when he was so close to realizing his plans?

At the corner of Folsom Street, he looked back. The woman was standing patiently stroking the little boy's hair, glancing up the street every few seconds. That must be the direction her husband would be coming from. There was something in her posture, in the eagerness of her glances, that made Arthur envy her husband for a second, and then pray, very briefly, for his safety.

Arthur started down Folsom, walking as fast as he could. He glanced at his watch, and then shook it to see if it was broken. Almost six o'clock? How could that be? He stepped up his pace. It had been almost forty minutes since the ground had stopped shaking. Anything could have happened in that amount of time. Anything. If Brittany saw him poking around, she'd recognize him and know his name. This one at least. Maybe he should leave the packet right where it was and let the fake bills be found, if that's what was going to happen. But he hated to. If Mr. Lopez whisked Rachel home and this didn't work out, he was going to need a stake.

It was then that Arthur looked up, trying to see if the houses all the way down Folsom were as destroyed as the ones he was passing—and he caught his breath and stared. A blackish pillar of smoke was rising. It was down around Fifth Street, or maybe Sixth. He looked at the piles of lumber that had been houses on either side of the street. This whole part of the city was going to go up like God's own bonfire. He began to run.

* * *

><p>Brittany was out of breath, coughing on the haze of dust as they finally broke free of the worst of the crowds toward Sixth Street. Brittany saw other women running as well. They all looked terrified, dirty, and unladylike. She knew that she looked no different, and it bothered her. She knew it wouldn't have if it hadn't been for Santana's hand on hers. Brittany didn't want the other woman to see her as dirty and common—and the fact that she cared angered her beyond measure. Santana would <em>never<em> see her the way she wanted her to, no matter what.

"How much farther?" Santana asked.

"Not far," she answered without turning her head. "Another six or seven blocks." The words came out timed to her breaths. She negotiated the corner, turning onto Sixth, and then glanced up to meet her dark eyes. "If you want to go back—"

Santana shook her head. "I will make sure you're all right. _Then_ I'll go back and try to find my father and Rachel." She looked past her, pulling the blonde out of the way of two big men dragging a piano down the sidewalk. The concrete was ruining the carved feet of the instrument. A string of six or seven children followed, each and every one of them crying.

"Ay, dios mio," Santana muttered once they had passed.

Brittany glanced at her again. She was looking down the street. The rising black smoke seemed so much a part of the destruction and chaos around her that it took her a moment to understand. When she did, she turned back to Santana. "But they'll put it out. The firehouse is right down there—between Folsom and Shipley. They'll see it."

The Latina nodded and she glanced at the smoke again, and then hurried along, lifting her skirt and coat to free her stride. The journal swung against her leg at every step, reminding her of Arthur and her humiliation at believing that he had cared for her. She quickened her step again and felt Santana match her pace.

"It's Zizes' Bakery," she said woodenly, when she realized that the heap of rubble she was looking at was the place where she often bought bread for Mrs. Sylvester on her way home. The whole neighborhood seemed unfamiliar, strange. She looked around, her heart racketing inside her chest. Everything was different. Ruined. Most of the houses had collapsed or stood askew on their foundations.

* * *

><p>By the time he reached the ferry, Marco Lopez was frantic. The first load of refugees were gibbering like startled sparrows to anyone who would listen. The city was a ruin, the streets were buckled, the mint was wrecked, and half of the financial district had collapsed.<p>

Marco shouldered his way through them as they disembarked, and then rode the little boat, his eyes glued to the peninsula across the water. He recognized some of the other passengers, but no one he knew well. Richard Fitzgerald, a respectable Main Street saloon owner, stood next to Finn Something-or-other—Marco wasn't sure of his last name, but most everyone in Oakland knew his face. He was a do-nothing drunk and gambler only made half-respectable because his wife, Elizabeth Mason, came of good honest stock. Marco looked around. He didn't see her, and now that he thought about it, he hadn't for a week or two—not even in church. Maybe she had finally left, gone to her sister in the city after all.

The destruction on the other side of the bay became easier to see the closer they got. As did the spires of smoke. Marco counted three. It was hard to tell exactly where they were coming from, but he kept trying anyway.

As the ferry breasted the choppy waves in little lurches, the conversations around Marco wilted into a tense silence. The passengers all stared at the city that had been a white and shining beauty a few hours before.

* * *

><p>Arthur reached the boardinghouse out of breath and sweating. He ran up the steps and called out once before going inside. The building was askew on its foundation, and Arthur had seen enough collapsed houses in the neighborhood to be grateful that was as far as the damage seemed to go.<p>

He took four quick strides across the front room, and then turned to go up the stairs, moving as silently as he could. At the top of the first flight, he glanced back down, daring to hope. So far, so good. He went upward again and knocked softly on Brittany's door, waiting until he was sure she wasn't inside before he pushed it open.

The beat-up armoire had fallen, and the bed had been jounced from the wall and sat at an angle across the center of the room. The window was broken; glittery crescents of glass stuck in the gaudy curtains.

Arthur ran to the bed and lifted it, grunting as he tipped it onto its side. His packed of papers was still there, jammed tightly between the slats. He freed it and turned to leave.

"Hold it right there, young man," said the old woman standing in the doorway. She was pointing a pistol at his chest. Arthur felt sweat spring out on his forehead. Then he smiled.

The old woman cocked the gun.

* * *

><p>Rachel sat at the dining room table. The Changs were devising a plan of action. Rachel only half-listened, staring out the window that looked out over what had been San Francisco's beautiful downtown. Now it overlooked a smoking ruin. The glass in this window was intact, but the bay window in the front room had been broken and was now letting in distant screams and shouts and the unceasing barking of frightened dogs.<p>

Rachel stood and walked to the window to look down to the street. The sidewalks were filling with people. Carriages were lined up along the curbs. Chinese houseboys were running back and forth carrying trunks and packing boxes. Rachel tried to feel the excitement and agitation that everyone else seemed to be feeling. But she couldn't. She felt an eerie kind of calm instead, as though there were a pane a protective glass between herself and the panic, the fire—the earthquake itself.

"Rachel will come with us, then?" Mrs. Chang was saying.

Her husband nodded. "Unless Marco makes it here in the next few hours and decides differently. We can leave word with Lee, and we can leave a note on the door. I'll cable him in Oakland from Sacramento when we get there just to be sure."

Rachel didn't turn from the window as she listened. But she was making a decision inside the strange silence that filled her heart. She was not going to go anywhere with the Changs. If Papa didn't come, she would go alone to the Palace Hotel and find out what had happed to Santana and Arthur. Arthur would be there waiting for her if he was alive, of that much she was certain. So would her sister.

"Rachel?"

"Yes, Mrs. Chang?"

"Come away from the window, child. It's unseemly to watch like that. People are barely dressed and hardly at their best."

Rachel turned, her eyes lowered. "Yes, Mrs. Chang." She left the dining room and walked back to the bedroom she had slept in and closed the door. This window faced Chinatown, and she could see the rows of collapsed wooden buildings in the distance.

She had never been to Chinatown. Papa had always said there were things a girl should not see there. Prostitution, he had meant, and probably the opium dens she had heard about. But other people had gone there and come back with wonderful descriptions of exotic, beautiful women, shops full of herbs, and savory food. Now she would never see it, Rachel knew. It was gone. The closest she would come to it would be her time spent with the Changs. Although both of them were Asian, they tried to keep themselves from being associated with Chinatown as much as possible—though they still adhered to many aspects of their ancestry.

She saw faint spirals of smoke rising from the wreckage, but that didn't bother her. San Francisco was equipped with one of the best and most modern fire departments of any city anywhere. It wouldn't be long before they had the fires out. But then what? Where were all the people whose houses had collapsed and been ruined going to go?

Maybe Papa would let Arthur come stay at the ranch for a while, until he sorted out what he was going to do next. _Maybe_, Rachel heard herself thinking, _we would decide to marry_, a "whirlwind affair," as the papers called it when it happened to tycoons or famous stage entertainers. She smiled. A whirlwind affair, and then a wedding.

Rachel still felt the odd calmness surrounding her, insulating her from the ruin of the city. It wouldn't be long before Papa came. They would go find Arthur and Santana. Then they would all go home.

* * *

><p>Santana could hardly believe what she was seeing. Every block led them into worse ruin and more fires. The streets here were blocked off with shattered wood and tumbled foundations. The destruction was very nearly complete. And the human wreckage was almost more than she could bear to look at.<p>

There were people dead in the piles of splintered boards and slabs of plaster and roofing tar. Here and there she could hear the screams of some poor soul trapped under tons of lumber and stone. She did not call Brittany's attention to these cries, but she knew that she had heard them when her hand tightened on her own.

The people on the street were a mixture of workingmen and their families and the sort of people that one never saw during the daytime. There were women who might be tavern entertainers—sad-eyed, hard-faced women; and a few younger ones, still pretty but with a sullen anger in their bearing and eyes that made her want to insist that Brittany turn around and leave this place now, to protect her own goodness.

But the blonde beauty seemed less shocked than she was as they walked. Brittany politely excused herself to undershirted Irishmen and Italians who eyed them quickly if their wives were nearby and more slowly and carefully if they were not. She exchanged nods with the slattern girls in her path and the old rheumy-eyed alcoholics who sat hunched along the curbs. The way she handled herself was amazing to the darker-skinned woman.

Santana was about to ask her how much farther they had to go when Brittany raised her hand, lifting Santana's with it, and gestured. "Thank God it hasn't collapsed."

With a relieved smile spreading across her pretty face, Brittany let go of Santana's hand and began to run. The Latina had to sprint to catch up, marveling again at how well she picked her way through the broken cobbles, fleet as any deer. Santana slowed to let her lead through a narrow place where the street itself had sunk on both sides. Running behind her, Santana saw that her braids were coming undone. _Her hair is as beautiful as the rest of her_, she thought, smiling to herself.

A gunshot startled Santana out of her thoughts; Brittany stumbled to a stop.

"Which house is yours?" she asked the taller woman. Brittany pointed, an unreadable expression on her face. "That's the house where the shot was, I think."

Brittany nodded and then started forward again, walking slowly, her head tipped to one side, listening.

"Brittany?"

"Shhh."

Santana could see her trembling, and she tugged at her sleeve. "I'll go take a look."

But she simply shook her head and kept going. The brunette followed her to the door, and then pulled her gently aside and went in first, an overwhelming need to protect the blonde spurring her on. There were no voices, no footsteps, no sounds at all.

"Mrs. Sylvester?" Brittany called.

There was no answer.

"Mrs. Sylvester!" Santana shouted.

"I'll check her room," Brittany said, and Santana let her lead the way, glancing around for something she could use to defend them if she needed to. Passing the front room fireplace, she picked up a poker and held it close to her side.

Brittany pointed at an open door, and they advanced toward it slowly. The room was empty. The bed stood in the center of the room. A tall old dresser had crashed forward. There was broken glass of a hundred different colors on the bare wood floor.

"She collects little painted figures. Cheap ones from the bric-a-brac places," Brittany said.

Sudden footsteps pounded on the stairway and Brittany whirled toward the sound, but Santana caught her arm and ran ahead of her back down the little hall to the front room. A man was coming down, his face averted, one arm raised as if to shield himself from a blow. Santana heard Brittany gasp. The man cursed as he leapt the last six or eight steps and sprinted for the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" Brittany cried out, but the man didn't answer. He was out the door and down the steps before Santana could even react.

"That was Arthur Abrams," Brittany said slowly, as though trying to figure out if what she had seen was real or not.

"My sister's suitor?"

She nodded slowly, her face a confusion of emotions.

Santana stared at her. "Do you know him? Why would he be here?" Brittany shook her head without answering, and then started up the stairs. Santana could only follow her as she climbed straight to the third floor and stopped in the doorway of a room that the Latina instantly knew was hers. It smelled of the same blossom-scented soap she had smelled on her skin.

"Brittany?"

She still wouldn't answer her. She was staring at the fallen armoire. Her bed had somehow landed on its side, and the bedding was sliding off of it. As Santana watched, her pillow slumped toward the floor, and then dropped as the blanket fell away. Brittany was staring at it. Santana could almost read her thoughts in the quizzical expression on her face. Why was the pillow falling _now_?

Brittany walked around to the far side of the bed, almost tiptoeing. Santana watched her, the poker gripped tightly in her hand. Brittany stopped suddenly, staring at the floor. Her face went white. Santana took three quick steps around the end of the bed. An old woman lay on the floor, her eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. A pistol lay discarded next to her. There was a large, dark pool of blood staining her waist and the floor directly under her.

"Mrs. Sylvester," Brittany whispered. "Oh, my God, no." Then she turned and ran down the stairs. Taking one last glance at the dead woman, Santana followed. Without warning, Brittany stopped halfway across the front room, dropping to her knees. She began to cry. Santana knelt beside her and put her hand on her shoulder. She could feel Brittany's whole body shaking beneath her fingers. Santana stayed quiet; she had no idea what to say to her. She remembered crying like this only once in her life, alone behind the barn after her mother had died. She had no idea what she ought to do, but she knew what she must not do. Interrupting her would be wrong. So she sat still, silent, her hand on her shoulder, waiting.

Brittany's sobs gradually drew farther apart and Santana could hear her taking quick breaths between them. Finally, after a long time, she seemed to feel the other girl's hand on her shoulder and she turned and hid her face against her chest.

"She was like a grandmother to me, like…family," Brittany mumbled slowly.

Santana stroked her hair away from her tear-soaked cheeks and rocked back and forth slightly, aching inside. She would have given anything to take her pain away. She held Brittany close as she began to cry again, slower and softer this time.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Okay, so since a few people have asked for more Brittana, or have wondered when**** there will be more, and I can only assume the other readers of this story, however few of you there may be, are wondering the same thing, I feel I should probably explain myself. If you don't care, obviously you may skip this next part (it will be quite massive, and I apologize in advance for anyone who actually reads it). :)**

**1) I want this story to be different from others in the sense that I want there to be more of an emphasis on their emotional connection before the physical part of their relationship starts. I know, as Brittana fans, we want to see them together as soon as possible, since we will obviously never get any sort of Brittana satisfaction from the actual show. However, there are _tons_ of other stories out there with that, so if you want Brittana smut and lots and lots of physical interaction, I think you've come to the wrong story, and I apologize for wasting your time.**

**2) Please keep in mind the time period of the story. This is 1906! If I had set this story in 2006, then, yes, I would have had Brittana interacting more and getting together much, _much_ earlier. However, I'm trying to be real to the time period. This was a time when women had little to no say in whom they married, and their opinions were not valued very highly in general. Colleges only taught women skills they would need to be good wives and mothers, or nurses or teachers (for small children); occupations deemed fitting for women. Women could not vote at this time either. The courtship traditions ****were rather frigid, often with two people marrying only for familial ties and after only meeting briefly. The thought of the existence of homosexuals was taboo (can I get a big, fat "duh"?) and even non-existent in many places. So, keeping all of this, and much, much more in mind, I think you guys can understand why Brittany would not act on her feelings for Santana right away - hell, she didn't even act on her "feelings" for Arthur because it was customary for a woman only to reveal her feelings after the man has expressed his ****- and why she would be wary of Santana's motives. As for Santana, while in my story she is much more open to the prospect of her feelings for Brittany, she does have the class issue to keep in mind, and the fact that one never assumes she's gay, so it might have taken her longer to figure out than it would for say, someone in 2012, where homosexuality is becoming increasingly more socially acceptable and we can gain access to lesbian info and...images, etc, practically anywhere, _especially _with the internet. And, both being "proper" young women, they are more internal than they would be 100 years later, since, again, they were brought up in times where women were still believed best if they were subservient to men.  
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**3) Also, there's an** **earthquake. Which** **means that opportunities for physical intimacy are going to be rare for them. They cannot simply make-out in the middle of a crowded street. Lord knows what would happen to them if they did _that_ in front of the wrong people, especially in a time of such panic.**

**So...yeah. ****Sorry for rambling on and on, but I felt it was necessary, just so you can understand the reasoning behind the snail's pace Brittana is progressing in this story. I _completely_ understand your...eagerness, and I can only hope that this chapter helped assuage your Brittana desires for now? :)** **If you hold on for one more chapter, you might be a bit happier about it. :D Maybe. I can't read minds (I would love that superpower, though. Ooo! And telekinesis. But I digress...). ;) You guys are all awesome. Just putting it out there. :)  
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**Anywho, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! :D**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Hello, readers! **

**So, I've been spending nearly all of my free time grading papers this week (and still going...ugh), and I just had to share this with you guys. First of all, you have heard of Athena, right? She's a Greek goddess? And, you've heard of Pandora, right? The one with the "box" (it was actually jar - they didn't have boxes back then) who was a woman specifically created to be an evil for mankind? Well, the class that I'm TA'ing for is a mythology class, and this one guy put down as a major point in his paper that Athena was created as the evil being with the "jar of evils". I had to laugh at that. I didn't even think it was possible to mix those two people up. And it wasn't like he only said it once. He kept saying it throughout the entire paragraph. I just...I definitely felt like crying reading that paper, it was just so bad. Sorry, I had to share that with someone, and that someone turned out to be you! So, there you go. ;)**

**Also! If any of you reading this are fans of _Grey's Anatomy_, can I just say, how awesome was that "If/Then" episode! **Possible spoilers for those of you who may not have watched the episode, but plan to** I really loved it. I thought it could have been very bad, but they really did a great job pulling everything off and showing how the things that have happened on the show have been the right things for everyone. I really loved what happened with Meredith and her "person" April - I thought that was a great way to show that Christina is really it for her. :D Also, Christina, despite her awful hairstyle, was so badass, it was awesome! Aw, and subtle Calzona was so cute (and depressing, because Callie was married with 3 kids)! Okay, I'm done raving about that episode. Let's move on to this _Glee_ story.  
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**This chapter is dedicated to my lovely Beta. I didn't have one until this chapter, but she offered her services, and how could I say no? I definitely needed one, and she's already proving to be amazing! Definitely keeping her for as long as I can, haha. ;)**

**Anywho, I hope you all enjoy this chapter! :)**

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><p>The ground was shaking again. Will cursed the feeling. He had lined up his wife and three children in front of the children's wagons stacked with trunks and boxes. "We are going to your uncle Richard's," he announced, ignoring the tremor. There had been dozens of shocks since the big one and even the children had stopped reacting.<p>

"I don't want to go," Salvatore whined.

Will glared at his son. "You are almost eleven. Be a man. You are upsetting your Mama and sisters."

"But Scruffy is gone," Sal said, sniffing.

"He is a dog, Sal," Will said flatly, angry at his son for acting like a baby at a time like this. The girls were holding up better than he was.

"But Papa—"

"But Papa nothing," Will said. "Now, what did I tell you?"

"We are to hold hands and stay together no matter what," Margaret said, reciting it like it was a piece she had gotten by heart for school. "And we listen to you."

"To every word," Will said. "I don't want to lose any of you in the crowds."

The girls nodded, but Sal was still looking around for the damn dog. Will reached out and shook his shoulder lightly to get his attention. "Did you hear?"

Sal grimaced. "I heard, Papa. But—"

"No more talk about the dog. Every restaurant in town has fallen down. The coolers and storerooms are full of food. The Palace alone could feed a hundred dogs for a month."

"Did the whole building fall down, Papa?" Margaret asked, wide-eyed, and Will cursed himself. He should know better than to exaggerate in front of Margaret. If she had been a boy, she would have made a good priest. No one could ever get anything past her.

"No," he said, leveling with her. "But plenty of other buildings did. Especially the wooden ones. I've told you all this ten times."

Will looked up. Other families were walking along the sidewalk. Everyone was afraid of the fires now.

"I'm thirsty," Anna said quietly.

Sal made a face to tease her. "The faucets don't work, remember?"

"I know," Anna said, "but I am really—"

"We'll all get a drink soon enough," Will told her, picking her up to sit her on his hip. He glanced at his wife. Emma hadn't said a word in an hour. Her face was sweaty and her wide eyes were empty. "Shall we get started?" he asked her.

She didn't answer him, but she bent to pick up the wagon handle. He knew she still wanted to stay, and he'd been humoring her for hours, but in his heart he knew they should leave.

"All right then," Will said, trying to sound cheerful. "Let's go see Uncle Richard. We'll call him from the phone in the ferry building on the Oakland side."

Margaret narrowed her eyes. "What if Oakland is as bad as here?"

Will looked at the sky, and then at the elm tree that leaned at an angle out over the street. It had broken the wires, but hadn't fallen all the way to the ground. "It's not bad over there at all," Will said, still without looking at his daughter. "Hold hands now. Here we go."

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><p>Rachel stood at the dining room window again, watching the smoke-shrouded city below her. She listened to the intermittent explosions that Mr. Chang had told her were intentional, set by army engineers and firemen trying to make firebreaks to control the spread of the flames. The late afternoon sun was shining at a slant through the smoke, tinting everything a dirty pink. She could hear the Changs directing their staff, going through the motions of an evacuation. They were packing their most precious things, deciding what to leave to possible looters.<p>

"The city is going to burn," Mr. Chang kept saying. And his wife responded every time with, "Oh, dear my God in heaven, keep us safe." Rachel felt like screaming at them both to be quiet.

"How are you doing, dear?" Mrs. Chang said from behind her.

Rachel jumped, startled.

Mrs. Chang was instantly apologetic. "I am so sorry, dear. All our nerves are a bit raw, I suspect."

"How much longer before you are ready to leave?" Rachel asked. "I will want to go by the Palace first to meet my father and…my father should be there now."

Mrs. Chang was shaking her head. "Michael says we will go out of town to the north now. That whole part of the city is aflame, dear. We'll leave word for your father here and wire him the instant we can, dear."

Rachel nodded blandly, waiting for the kind and frightened Mrs. Chang to leave the room. Then she went back to her bedchamber and began packing her things. Her window wasn't far from the ground. She would leave the Changs a note.

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><p>Brittany wasn't entirely sure when she had stopped crying. Santana had not moved, other than to keep stroking her hair. The Latina seemed content to sit, holding her, waiting for her to finish crying.<p>

"I am so sorry," Brittany managed finally, sitting up. She was acutely aware that her cheeks were dirty and blotched and that her eyes were swollen. She looked aside, feeling the other woman's unwavering gaze upon her.

"You have nothing to apologize for," Santana said sincerely.

"You must think me a perfect mess," Brittany said, trying to sound like the wealthy young women she had passed a hundred times in the halls of the Palace Hotel. "You must think—"

"I think you are remarkable," Santana cut in. "And the most beautiful person I have ever seen."

Brittany could only stare at her. The brunette's eyes were on hers, intense and direct. Brittany felt something deep inside herself unfold, then close again. Mrs. Sylvester always said that people loved danger, whether it was the gold fields or war or simply disobeying a rule. Santana was probably just aroused by everything that had happened, her judgment clouded. Brittany knew it was true. A lot of housekeepers said similar things and—"

"When all of this is over," Santana was saying slowly and deliberately, "would you want to see me? I mean, I know I'm not a man, but I've come to realize that doesn't matter, not when it really counts."

"Your father would never accept it."

"What about yours?"

Brittany tried to keep her face smooth, emotionless, but Santana must have seen the pain pass through her eyes because she suddenly took her shoulders and pulled her closer. Brittany was stiff in her arms, the memories of her parents flashing through her mind. "My parents died with I was seven," she managed to whisper. "I have no family at all."

"Brittany, I…" Santana began, leaning back to look into Brittany's watery blue eyes, and then fell silent. Suddenly, Santana's lips were on hers. Her mouth was warm and soft…then, for an instant, the kiss changed from tender to fierce. Brittany opened her eyes and leaned back, breathless. A feeling she had no experience with bloomed inside her like a rose after rain. Santana was still staring at her, looking deeply into her eyes. Without quite knowing what she planned to do, Brittany leaned forward and kissed her back.

This time, Santana's full lips moved in tandem with hers, making her tense and tremble all at once. Santana reached up and cradled Brittany's cheek with her left hand, the gentlest touch Brittany had ever felt. With her thumb, Santana slowly stroked her cheek, deepening the kiss. Brittany's body tingled where it touched hers, as though electricity flowed between them. Sighing in contentment, Brittany wrapped her arms around Santana's neck and ran her fingers through the brunette's thick, dark hair.

Minutes passed. Or perhaps it was only seconds. Brittany didn't know—she had lost all sense of time the moment their lips touched. Finally, when the need for air became unbearable, Santana slowly, reluctantly, detached her lips from Brittany's, but held her tightly for a long time before she leaned back to look into her face. "We have picked the worst night of the world to do this," Santana breathed, her eyes twinkling.

Brittany smiled brightly, not sure she could trust her voice—or anything else. "To kiss?"

"To fall in love," she said. "You insult me, miss. Do you think you can toy with my affections?" Santana teased, winking at the blonde.

Brittany laughed at her dramatics as Santana got to her feet and went to the door and flung it open.

"Brittany?"

She heard something in the shorter woman's voice that made her scramble to her feet and go to stand beside her looking out. The street was hazy with smoke now, and she could see flames less than two blocks away. There was a muted percussive sound, unlike anything she had ever heard.

"Dynamite," Santana said instantly. "They're blowing up something, or the fire has found a powder shed."

Brittany looked up the street to see a line of soldiers marching through the smoke. It was eerie—as though war, not earthquake, had descended upon her city.

"Are they blasting on purpose?" Santana called out to the men.

One of them turned and cupped his hands around his mouth to shout back. "Trying to make a firebreak somewhere up around the Mint, up above The Slot."

Santana nodded her thanks, and then turned to Brittany. "Get whatever you want to save."

"But Mrs. Sylvester…" Brittany said, barely managing to speak around the painful tightness of emotion in her throat. "She always said she wanted to be buried in the cemetery north of here. It's grassy, and there are trees and…"

"We don't have a choice, Brittany. She wouldn't want you to die trying to make sure she got the burial she wanted, would she?"

Brittany shook her head, knowing she was right. "Help me, Santana," she asked in a tiny voice. She wasn't sure the Latina could have heard her, but she turned.

"I will. Tell me what to do."

Brittany gazed into her dark eyes for a second before she could answer. "I just want to move her downstairs. We could just put her in her own bed, not on the floor like that and—"

"Of course we can," Santana interrupted quietly. "But we need to hurry."

Brittany nodded and swiped at the rising tears in her eyes. Then she led the way up the stairs. Arthur's journal bumped her thigh with each step, and she wondered again what he had been doing here. If he hadn't come, Mrs. Sylvester would still be alive—of that much she was sure.

Brittany tried to think clearly. She would take her mother's small silver hairbrush and her father's little prayer book. She would have to leave the old trunk and the rest of what was in it and hope that the fires would spare the house until she could come back. She wrestled with the tangle of feelings inside her as she went up the next flight of stairs. She could hear Santana's footsteps behind her, solid, steady, and close.

* * *

><p>"Get back!" The ferryman was shouting. "Stand clear!"<p>

No one listened. The crowd pressed closer, mothers with one hand on a trunk handle and the other pulling first one child closer, then another.

Marco Lopez looked out at the solid wall of faces and wanted to break a way through with his fists. How stupid were these people? How frightened? Couldn't they see that unless passengers could get off the ferry, they couldn't get _on_?

The ferryman climbed up on the rail so that people farther back on the dock could see him. "Make room!" he yelled, motioning like someone shooing a pesky dog. He shouted twice more, but the crowd held its ground. No one wanted to give up so much as an inch, in case their neighbors in the line didn't follow suit.

"Oh, for Crissakes," the ferryman said in disgust, climbing down. "All the trips we have taken since daybreak, and they're still afraid this'll be the last one." He stared at the upturned faces.

Fed up with the frantic crowds that had cost him half a day's delay on the Oakland side and another two hours at the ferry dock, Marco pushed his way forward and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Let us through!" He pointed, jabbing an angry finger at the crowd. Then he pushed his coat back, drew his pistol, and made sure everyone saw him raise it to the sky. "Let me through!" he bellowed and shot straight up into the air three times.

A little path opened at one side of the crowd. Marco holstered his gun and started through it, the other fifteen or twenty passengers following close behind.

"Thanks, Mister," a man said from somewhere off to his right. Marco nodded curtly, not even sure who had spoken. _This is the danger_, he thought as he stepped from the dock up onto the planked terrace of the ferry building. People were going to panic and do stupid things—and God pity anyone in their way at the wrong time.

As he elbowed his way through the throngs, Marco thought about Rachel's trusting nature and Santana's willing heart and he grimaced. At least Rachel was with the Changs, and if they evacuated, she would go with them. Still, he thought, it might be best to make sure she was all right before he went looking for Santana. Marco shook his head, wishing he had never lied to either of them. He prayed he had not increased their danger.

There were none of the usual carriages or hacks parked by the low curb in front of the ferry on this terrible day. Just beyond it, where the cobblestones had risen up the gentle slope of Market Street, there was now a five-foot drop where they had collapsed into a chasm. Making his way through white-faced, exhausted-looking crowds, Marco scrambled up it and went on. He glanced back once. The ferry building tower, with its huge clock face, was badly damaged. The sandstone that the masons had faced it with was cracked and broken. Then Marco realized that he great clock still stood at 5:12. Had that first dawn-hour shock stopped it?

The streets were choked with people, bicycles, carts, and wagons. Every kind of conveyance was lined up, headed the other way, as Marco began walking toward the smoke. He passed a family pulling a ponycart full of bedclothes, books, and the whatnots women all seemed to think were so important. The wife was weeping loudly, tears running down her cheeks, her wailing shrill and ceaseless. A second woman, much younger, caught Marco's eye. At least this woman wasn't crying as she drew her children's toy wagon along. Her daughter, riding astride her hip, looked as grimly determined as her mother did. Her husband walked staunchly beside her, pulling a second wagon. In it sat a young boy, red-faced and wailing, and another little girl.

As they went by, Marco looked into the face of the father a second time. There was a light of recognition in the man's eyes, too, but he said nothing. It took Marco a block more, weaving through the endless crowds, before he placed the man. It was the waiter who had served them breakfast a dozen or more times. He seemed a good man, hardworking. Marco wished him well.

Ahead, the buildings of the financial district were ablaze, the air thick with smoke. With every step the crowds were thinning. Very few people were coming straight up Market Street now. A soldier appeared out of the acrid fog and gestured with his rifle, directing Marco to turn northward at the next corner. Marco followed the man's directions, coughing on the haze of smoke, trying to keep his sense of direction as he went up Sacramento Street. He didn't want to go farther than he had to this way before he turned toward Nob Hill. He could see glimpses of the grand homes and tall trees when the wind thinned the smoke for a few seconds.

Two soldiers nailing a poster to a saloon wall caught Marco's attention a moment before he smelled the stench of spilled whiskey. Broken casks and barrels were scattered in the gutter and across the sidewalk. As the soldiers walked away, Marco stopped to read the notice. All liquor in the city was being destroyed by order of General Funston. A second handbill announced that looters would be shot on sight. That order was from the mayor, E.E. Schmitz. Marco shook his head. _An order from the mayor to kill on sight? Could it be legal?_ Destroying the liquor made sense, to keep the peace. But the saloon-keepers would be furious, he was sure.

Stumbling over a tangle of dirty blankets lying on the cobblestones, Marco cursed himself. This was no time to twist his bad knee and cripple himself. Rachel needed him and, perhaps, so did Santana. The street looked like a scene from hell, and Marco began to pray for the safety of his daughters.

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><p>Rachel was pacing like a Barnum lion. Her satchel had been packed for hours. It would soon be evening, and the Changs were still dithering and dickering about what to take and what to leave. Rachel had wanted to wait for them to leave so that she could be sure that they would not try to pursue her—but the whole day had passed while they carried and sorted, and now Rachel overheard them talking about staying the night.<p>

The idea of waiting another few hours for it to get dark infuriated Rachel. If Papa had arrived, she would at least know that Santana was all right. And she probably was. Mr. Chang had brought her word from a passerby that the Palace had not collapsed, that the guests were uninjured, if terrified. But, thanks to Papa's little scheme of pretending they were going to visit Napa, she was pretty sure that Santana had no idea where she was. So she would wait at the hotel, watching and hoping that Santana and Papa would soon arrive.

The fire had spread slowly through downtown, but it had roared through the cheap wooden houses south of Market. Rachel could see the gutted Luka Building from the window. It was impossible to tell how bad things were that far away. Maybe most of the fires around the Palace were out. She would at least start there. And if she couldn't find Santana or Arthur, she would just come back to the Changs'.

Rachel slid up the window sash and looked out. The ground was farther away than she had thought. She stood uncertainly, glancing at her closed door and hoping that neither Mrs. Chang nor her husband would choose this minute to come and check. Then she whirled around and fished through the escritoire drawers until she found a pen and paper. Leaving a note apologizing for her behavior seemed only polite, but it was hard to control her trembling hands. Now that she had decided to slip away, she could hardly stand to wait. When she stood back at the windowsill, she hesitated once more, measuring the distance down. Every other novel she had ever read described someone going out a window. Girls went to meet their lovers, boys escaped their fathers' anger, runaways left home. "And I will break a leg trying," she thought wryly as she lifted one foot and swung it over the sill. She straddled the sash, her dress hiked up above her knees. She tossed her satchel over and heard it hit the ground. It wasn't that far. She had climbed trees five times this high as a girl. _But not,_ she admitted to herself, _in a tight-laced corset_.

Rachel turned, rolling onto her stomach, and then wriggled backward to let herself slide downward, her hands gripping the stone windowsill. When she let go, she dropped about four feet and stumbled backward awkwardly, sitting down hard on the grass the Changs had planted to keep down the dust.

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><p>Arthur was sick with the heat and smoke. The crowds were nearly impenetrable, with people moving along at a snail's pace. The explosions were closer now. Someone had explained to him what the firemen were doing, and he was desperate to get out of the path of the blasting, but it was impossible. The crowd flowed like a human river between the curbs.<p>

When he could finally see the tall buildings along Market Street again, he could also see flames pouring from their highest windows. An old woman fell in front of him, and he helped her up, and then released her into the arms of her elderly husband, who thanked him warmly.

Arthur cringed, his stomach weak, remembering how the old woman in the boardinghouse had suddenly slumped against him. It was at least the twentieth time he had relived the scene, and his own weakness was starting to make him angry. She had said she would shoot. He had not meant to harm her. It _wasn't_ his fault.

Coming back through the Mission district had taken him two or three hours, he was certain. The smoke was terrible, and his lungs ached, but he was wary of just setting off on a side street. He wanted to get back up onto Market. It was the widest thoroughfare in the city, second only to Van Ness Avenue. If the ground shook again, he would at least have a chance of dodging the falling brick and stone.

Arthur was shoved from behind, and he cursed the crowd under his breath. He knew where they were all headed. They wanted to go straight down Market to the ferry, somehow believing there would be room enough for all of them with their trunks and wagons and carts.

At the next intersection, soldiers were standing across the road, shouting and gesturing. Following their signals, the throng was turned away from Market and headed up another narrow street.

Pushed along against his will, Arthur managed to work his way to the edge of the street and ducked down an alleyway. Standing still, he tried to think of a way to salvage his plans. Why the chambermaid had been with Rachel's sister was anyone's guess. But Brittany had seen him in the boardinghouse, of that he was sure. She had met his eyes, had almost shouted out his name. And she would tell Santana.

Stepping through a pile of sharp-edged masonry that had been jolted from a decorative wall, Arthur headed back toward Market. His best chance of escaping Marco Lopez and the law was to leave now, somehow, and to put as many miles between himself and this ruin of a city as he could, and then he'd head for the train. He patted his suit pocket to make sure the money was still there.

Staying close to the buildings and walking fast, Arthur cursed when the ground trembled beneath his feet, as it had done so many times since that morning's shock. He could not keep himself from stopping and cowering, but the shock was short and weak, and he went on.

The streets were almost empty here. The soldiers were directing people around the worst of the fire. Engines stood in the street and soldiers marched past, as their captains shouted orders that Arthur wasn't able to understand over the roar of the fire and the clatter of an automobile engine. As he watched, a dashing man in driving clothes wheeled around a corner and headed up Fourth Street, with a man in military garb beside him.

When he came within sight of the Palace Hotel, the ground shook once more. Arthur glanced up at the Crocker Building, and then back at the Palace. There were flames flickering in the windows of both buildings. The shaking stopped and he lowered his eyes. It was only then that he saw Rachel, her eyes wide and frightened, running toward him through the smoke.

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><p><strong>AN: So, Brittana finally kissed! Are you as relieved as I am that they finally did something about their feelings? ;) I hope it worked for you guys; I worked really hard on that part (along with my Beta). :D **

**Anywho, well, that's last we'll see of Will. To be honest, I just wanted to have Emma make an appearance, and then I wouldn't have an excuse to have to keep talking about Will. I don't even like him on the show. He's much too much like Finn, in my opinion.** **Ahem. You can expect updates to be about once a week now. My classwork and work-work have already started to pile up, and you know, studies come first. *gasp!* _Blasphemy! _;)** **I shall be back with chapter 12 in the not-too-distant future! :D**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Hey, readers! **

** Sorry for the delay in posting this. You know...life got in the way. And by life, I, of course, mean school, since that _is_ my life. Also, work. Aaaand...laziness. *sheepish grin* Also, I totally thought this chapter was longer, considering how incessantly long it took to write it. I felt sorry for my Beta for having to correct so many things, haha.** **She's awesome like that, though. :) I really should _never_ try to type a chapter late at night. My brain pretty much shuts down after 7, haha. **

**_Anyway..._the point is, here's another chapter for you guys! And on Valentine's Day too! I totally forgot about that until just now. Just another day for me, but not for others, so Happy Valentine's Day to all you readers out there, whether you're single, in a relationship, or otherwise romantically engaged! :) **

**So, yeah. I'll shut up now. I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

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><p>The grounds of the Protestant Orphans Asylum was filled with people standing in the open, most of them staring out at the flames and smoke on the other side of Mission Street. So far, none of the buildings on Laguna Street were afire. Only the saloon across the way with its huge, neatly painted sign announcing Wilson Whiskey looked damaged—and the soldiers had done that. The barrels were all broken now.<p>

Brittany looked up at the reddish glow of the lowering sun through the smoke, and then back at Santana. Her beautiful face was smudged with dirt and her eyes were narrowed and red. Santana noticed Brittany watching her.

"Are you all right, Brittany?" Santana asked quietly.

The blonde nodded, realizing that she had been staring at the shorter woman.

Santana took her hand, gently entwining their fingers. "I'm sorry about Mrs. Sylvester." She lifted her head and looked past Brittany. "I hope that my Papa has the sense not to come looking for me—and that he keeps Rachel in hand." Santana finished by lightly patting the hand caught within her own.

Brittany felt a smile touch the corners of her mouth. "You make her sound like a spirited horse."

Santana smiled. "She is, in a way—an energetic colt just learning to jump the gate."

"She's beautiful," Brittany said quietly, remembering with painful clarity the way she had felt, standing in the lobby watching Arthur as he watched Rachel. She blushed, but if Santana noticed in the hazy, late sunlight, she said nothing. Brittany put her hand in her coat pocket and felt the packet that held her father's prayer book and her mother's brush. Beneath it was Arthur's journal.

"Santana," she said, and the brunette turned from watching the smoke to look at her again. Without a word Brittany pulled the leather journal from her coat and handed it to the Latina. "Read it," was all she said. Santana accepted the journal from Brittany with a quizzical look and slowly released the blonde's hand to read the entries scribbled within.

Brittany watched the look of puzzlement on Santana's face give way to one of dark anger as she turned the pages. Brittany waited without speaking. Around them the sounds of the crowd rose and fell like waves. Someone jostled Brittany from behind, and she took a short step forward to keep her balance, her eyes still on Santana.

"The man is a complete fraud," Santana said finally, closing the diary. "A con man."

Brittany could only nod as a dark pink spread across her cheeks.

"What was he doing at your boardinghouse? Were you involved with him?" Santana's eyes narrowed as she observed the taller woman intently.

"No," Brittany said, but then she hesitated, remembering the day that Arthur had asked for her address. Why _had_ he gone there? Santana reached out to capture Brittany's hand as she watched the uncertainty play across the blonde's face. The simple gesture felt so natural, so perfectly _right_, that Brittany found herself pouring out her embarrassment, her foolish belief that Arthur had been attracted to her—her dreams of being cared for, loved, of being someone's partner.

When she stopped talking, Santana was tapping the cover of the journal with one finger with a faraway look in her eyes.

Brittany looked up at the smoke-smeared sky again while she waited for Santana to speak. It was getting dusky, partly from the smoke, partly because the day was waning. The crowd on the grassy slope was thickening. On all sides, people were talking in low voices.

"I am very grateful that you warned us, Brittany," Santana said with such earnest sincerity that Brittany could only smile at her. The brunette leaned up to kiss her cheek. "So will Papa and Rachel, if she will ever read it." She handed the small book back, a thoughtful expression on her face. "My sister might listen to you better than to either of us." She gestured, and Brittany turned to look at the rising columns of smoke in the Mission district and beyond.

A shiver of fear went through the blonde. "The fires are spreading so quickly it seems impossible that anything will be left standing."

An older man with a long silver-gray moustache turned to look at her and nodded. His arm was tight around a small boy's shoulders. Beside them stood a girl of fifteen or so, her face bleak and weary. "There's no water," the man said slowly and deliberately.

His words were heavy and sad, and Brittany could only stare at him. "No water?"

"That's what I heard a fire captain say," the man told her. "The pipes were broken in the shakeup. There are the old cisterns here and there, but a lot of them caved in, or weeds have grown over the lids and they can't find them at all."

Brittany blinked, watching the black plumes of smoke billowing upward to the east and north. She turned to scan the edges of the open field they stood in. People were still pouring in from the streets on the other side of Mission, standing shoulder to shoulder along the curbs. She noticed uniforms. There were so many soldiers. A sparkle of orange flame shot skyward, and the man who had spoken to them nodded his head knowingly. "The gasworks."

"I don't think we should stay here," Santana said once the man had turned away again.

Brittany nodded. "The fires could come this way in the night."

Santana cupped the taller woman's face in her hands, turning her head until Brittany looked into her eyes. "If you want to go, we will," she whispered, leaning close into her ear to be heard. "We can start off up Laguna, and then—"

"I know the streets and alleys better than you do," Brittany smirked while their cheeks still touched. Brittany could feel Santana's smile, even if she could not see it. Suddenly the Latina circled her arms around Brittany's waist and pulled her close.

"You are the bravest woman I have ever known," Santana admitted softly. Then she tugged the blonde even closer. Brittany felt her body melt into the embrace. As she wrapped her own arms around Santana's shoulders, she was reminded of two puzzle pieces joined together at last. Brittany closed her eyes and savored the warmth she felt inside the Latina's arms. Santana hadn't told her that she was beautiful, or charming, or delicate. She had said _brave_. Brittany was as slim as a woman was supposed to be, but that mattered less to the tan-skinned woman than her courage? Brittany found herself leaning back to study the dark brown eyes in front of her. She couldn't resist as her gaze dipped lower and she stared at Santana's mouth, imagining what it would be like to kiss her with passion as well as love.

Santana noticed Brittany's glance and leaned up, brushing her lips against the corner of Brittany's mouth—a display of affection that would go unnoticed by the people that surrounded them. "Burt is going to think you are wonderful," she said.

Brittany wanted to ask her who Burt was, but at that moment the ground beneath their feet began to tremble, and they embraced again, holding each other as the crowd around them fell silent.

A sudden round of explosions compressed the air, hurting Brittany's ears. Only the sound of babies crying broke the sudden quiet.

* * *

><p>Arthur bent close to whisper into Rachel's ear. "It's too dangerous here." Gently he guided her forward, heading up Market Street, wondering if the trains were still running and if he could get to a station. There were flames in nearly every window, but, aside from coughing on the stinging smoke, people seemed not to notice. They stepped around the rubble and barely looked up when explosions came from down around the Mint Building.<p>

A column of marching soldiers came onto Market from a side street and Arthur pulled Rachel closer. The captain was shouting. Just then a few men leaped through the broken windows and began running, clutching boxes and trailing ragged tissue paper in their arms.

_Looters, _Arthur thought, just as three shots rang out. The thieves scattered, each going a different direction.

"Where will we go?" Rachel asked in a child's voice.

"Lafayette Square, I think," he told her. "It's open ground a long way from the fire. We'll be safe there for the night. Tomorrow morning we can hire a carriage, and I will figure out how to get you home."

"My father will be indebted to you," Rachel said. "And so will I." She looked at him with trusting eyes. He put his arm around her and she leaned into his side. Arthur kept his eyes moving, scanning the crowds in the streets, ready to change direction at a glimpse of Mr. Lopez or his eldest daughter, thinking frantically, _This could all work out perfectly—even after everything that has gone wrong. Maybe the chambermaid won't tell Rachel's sister anything. Why should she? Maybe she was in the process of trying to separate her from her purse somehow. She didn't look or act like a con, but why else would Santana have been with her?_

Another thudding concussion shook the ground. Rachel pressed close. "We have to hurry," he said as calmly as he could, unwrapping her arms from around his neck. He held her close to his side and got her walking again.

* * *

><p>Marco Lopez was stunned listening to the Changs' houseboy explain that Rachel had run off. He clenched his fists, anguished at the idea of his youngest daughter walking the streets alone. She would be scared—and prey to any rough-mannered fool who saw her.<p>

Marco nodded dismissively and watched as the houseboy went back to his work of carrying paintings to the wine cellar. _How could the Changs have left without Rachel? How could she have been so foolish as to run off?_

_Damn that Abrams,_ Marco thought, throwing a punch at thin air. _Damn him_. Rachel would have gone with the Changs if it hadn't been for him, Marco was sure. He looked up at the massive clouds of dark smoke rising from the city below and shook his head. Michael Chang had been right to leave. One little shift in the wind and the flames would race uphill.

Suddenly Marco noticed a man riding one saddle horse and leading three more slowly through the rubble-littered street below the Changs' house. His eyes narrowed, Marco began walking. Halfway down the hill, he reached inside his coat for his wallet.

* * *

><p>Brittany's lungs were aching. The streets were getting less and less crowded as they went, and that worried her. The people whose homes had been ruined were finding places to spend the night. Every little vacant lot, every stretch of grass had a makeshift household set up upon it. A wind had risen, a strange directionless flow of cool air dragged in by the rising of the fire's heat.<p>

"Look at that," Santana said, and her smoke-roughened voice was barely more than a whisper.

Brittany raised her eyes, blinking, trying to focus. She looked up Sacramento Street, past the wood-framed houses and shop fronts that sat like crooked blocks in a child's yard after the game is over for the day. Nothing looked remarkable—it was as damaged and awful as everything else they had walked past. She saw a gray-haired man sitting slumped over on the curb, crying silently. People were walking past, intent on their own problems.

Brittan looked wearily at Santana, not understanding.

"There," she said, pointing. "Tents."

Only then did Brittany pick out what the brunette was talking about. Three or four blocks away she could just see a wide strip of dirty white canvas. At this distance, it looked more like sheets hanging on a long line, but as they got closer she saw that Santana was right.

"Lafayette Park," Brittany told her.

Santana nodded. "The army is probably setting up shelters in all the parks now."

Brittany nodded. It seemed to be true. There were even more soldiers in the park than they had seen elsewhere, and a long line of ragged, weary-looking people had formed in front of one of the tents. Santana led her toward the line without speaking. They fell in behind a broad-shouldered man and a heavyset woman, both crying almost soundlessly, sniffling and wiping at their noses with filthy handkerchiefs.

As she stood waiting with a hundred other people, Brittany felt the day's events settling onto her shoulders. The weight seemed almost more than she could bear. She could feel her mother's hairbrush in her pocket. In the distance she could hear the booming blasts they had been hearing off and on for hours. There wasn't going to be anything left of the city by morning.

"You will be able to rest soon," Santana said softly, and Brittany felt the other woman's arm wrap around her shoulders. Without meaning to, Brittany leaned against her. There was a weariness settling into her body that was like nothing she had ever felt before. Mrs. Sylvester was dead. Brittany closed her eyes as the line moved forward. She let Santana guide her two steps forward, and then they stopped again. She did not open her eyes. They hurt so badly. It was as though the heat had burned them. Santana nudged her forward another step.

With her eyes closed, Brittany began to notice the conversations around her. There was a couple behind them talking about whether or not they would be allowed to build fires to cook. The idea of _building _a fire seemed suddenly funny to Brittany, and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing aloud. She was giddy and exhausted, and she knew it. Santana tightened her arm around the blonde's shoulders when she felt the blonde shuddering and moved her forward again.

When Brittany finally opened her eyes, only the crying couple stood between them and the army officer. He handed the weeping man a piece of paper and gestured for him and his wife to move off.

"Just the two of you?" The soldier asked the question, and then turned to shout at someone off to his right. When he looked back, Santana nodded.

"Yes, sir."

"Your names are…?"

"Santana Lopez," Santana said. "And Brittany—" she hesitated, and Brittany could tell that the Latina had forgotten her last name. Brittany took a quick breath to speak, but the soldier was already thrusting a paper into Santana's hands, his eyes flickering past them.

"Lopez. Good enough. Tent number 39." The soldier pointed in the direction of their shelter for the evening.

Santana tried to speak again, but the man gestured emphatically, waving them away. Brittany cleared her throat to speak up on her own behalf, but the soldier repeated his impatient gesture. "Next in line!"

Santana put her arm around Brittany's shoulders again, and they made their way uphill through the crowds. Brittany looked into the faces of the people standing in loose groups in front of the low canvas tents. Many of them looked pale, stunned. Brittany lowered her eyes, wondering if they were as saddened by her face as she was by theirs.

Santana kept her moving, and Brittany kept glancing at the brunette sidelong, thinking. _She really is wonderful. I don't know what I would have done today if it hadn't been for her. She doesn't even seem to care that I'm merely a lowly, orphaned chambermaid_, Brittany mused, once again taking note of the difference in how they were dressed. Santana had no proper hat or gloves on, but her clothes were fine and new, a contrast from the blonde's own shabby dress.

"Here," Santana said. Brittany turned to look at the shorter woman. Santana was gesturing toward the tent. Brittany noticed for the first time that there were numbers painted on the canvas flaps. "Go on inside, Brittany."

Brittany started to shake her head. Even though the dusk was deepening into evening and she was heavy with weariness, she could not imagine herself sleeping while the whole city burned down around them.

Santana ducked into the tent, and Brittany could hear her rummaging around. "There's a blanket," Santana announced. There was such happy surprise in her voice that Brittany could not help smiling a little. Lifting her sooty skirts, she bent over and stepped into the tent.

"Here," Santana repeated.

Brittany couldn't see at all. The canvas blocked the last light of day. Kneeling down, she reached out carefully and touched Santana's face. The Latina caught Brittany's hand and held it against her cheek for a long heartbeat, and then she pulled the blonde toward her.

The tent was a musty, crooked affair, obviously hastily pitched. Its sloping canvas walls were only a foot from the next tent. Brittany could hear children crying somewhere close by. They sounded frightened and miserable.

She leaned against Santana, grateful for the strength of the brunette's arms around her. Brittany reached out and cupped the Latina's cheek again, brushing her thumb softly across her full bottom lip. She felt the brunette's breath hitch at the contact and leaned forward, closing the already miniscule gap between them.

Brittany poured herself into the kiss, wrapping her arms around Santana's neck, pulling her closer still. When she felt Santana's tongue tentatively stroke her bottom lip, asking for entrance, Brittany complied immediately, opening her mouth and feeling a jolt shoot through her body as their tongues met for the first time. As their tongues began their slow, sensual dance, Brittany felt herself kissing Santana exactly as she had imagined, with passion as well as love.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Um, yeah, so, I feel like I should apologize or something for that last scene. I don't "do" M rated stuff. Because, I literally can't, and trust me, if I tried, that would be fun for no one, but awkward and boring for everyone, lol. However, I do believe _something_ is going down (...pun _not_ intended, but totally relevant *snickers*) in that tent, but I'll leave that up to your imaginations, K? Awesome. :)**

**Lastly, I also feel I should warn you guys that there are only two chapters of this story left. I know, "What? It just got started!" But, I have the rest of the story planned out in my head****, and I like where I leave it, so...my apologies? *presents plate of "I'm Sorry" cookies* :) In any case, chapter 13 will be up...sometime soon. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! :D**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Hello, ladies!**

**So, Valentine's Day was pretty awesome, right? Not only was there a Brittana kiss, and it was more than just a peck (I wasn't expecting it, to be honest), but Faberry won that "TV's Top Couple" poll thing on E!online. :) I didn't know that existed until, like, yesterday, but it's still awesome, seeing as how I do love me some Faberry and they aren't a canon romantic couple (a fact which many disgruntled voters pointed out lol). :) Anyway, so, I was reading an article about it last night (when I should have been studying for a midterm...shhh, don't tell anyone), and this one girl left a comment about Faberry shippers that had me rolling. She said, "We are massive! Never underestimate the power of lesbian spirit fingers!" Bahahahaaa! I don't know why, but I thought that was the_ most_ _hilarious_ thing...And, that's totally pointless, but I thought I'd share. :)**

**Oh, one more completely pointless thing. I was studying last night and eating a green lifesaver and suddenly got a craving for candy corn. Specifically, those candy corn pumpkins. It was the _weirdest_ thing. I haven't had candy corn in years! Anyway, um, yeah, that was just a random fact that I thought was strange enough to be interesting...So, there you go! ;)**

**ANYway, so, here's the penultimate chapter! I hope you guys enjoy! :D**

* * *

><p>Rachel sat huddled, her arms around her knees, as the sun came up through the haze of smoke that hung over the city. Arthur was still asleep, stretched out on the cold, hard ground as though it were the finest of beds. She had been alone with her spinning thoughts much of the night.<p>

She stretched her cramped legs, wriggling her toes inside her blackened shoes. She wanted to go home, to the ranch, as quickly as she could. Her father would be out of his mind with worry, and so would Santana. But Arthur wanted to go north by train, as soon as they could find an open station. He assured her it was best—that they would never be able to get safely back through the mobs of people trying to get to the ferry building. He also thought the city would soon be lawless and dangerous.

Rachel was touched by his constant concern for her safety, by the way he had kept her so close by his side as they walked through the unending crowds. She sighed, looking at him in the grayish predawn light. He was terribly handsome. And he loved her.

She stood up silently to stretch her legs, brushing the loose grass and twigs from her skirt. It was ruined, torn along the hem and stained with soot and dust. Papa would not be happy about that, but what could she have done? She shook her head ruefully, knowing what Papa would say. She should have gone with the Changs. But if she had, she was not sure that she would ever have seen Arthur again—and surely that was worth any upset from Papa.

Rachel cleared her throat and winced at the sharp stinging of her smoke-raw lungs. She looked across the park. A few people were stirring. But not many. Perhaps the soldiers had water. The very idea that water might be close—might be had for the asking—was enough to make her throat ache with thirst. She lifted her dirty hemline and tiptoed away from Arthur. She would bring him water, too, if she could, and she would hurry, to be back before he awoke and found her gone.

* * *

><p>Marco Lopez had not slept. His mouth tasted like ashes, and his left knee was aching badly. He had dozed lightly, one hand on his pistol, wary of anyone who came too close to his horses. He had bought all four—saddles and all—from the man who had been leading them and swore he was their rightful owner. Marco could only hope it was true and that he hadn't handed a horse thief good American money.<p>

He had led the animals along the edge of the destroyed section of the city, skirting the fires, until he found some rope in a collapsed shed next to a burned out grocery. He had taken exactly what he needed, asked after the name of the owner, and copied it carefully onto a scrap of paper he tucked into his waistcoat pocket. He would make good on the debt as soon as he was able.

Using the rope, Marco had tied the three spare horses together like pack mules, head to tail, single file, and then had ridded in a relentless straight line back toward the fires. As long as there was daylight, he had kept his horses moving, finding less crowded streets and riding a wide perimeter, making his way back to Market as often as he could to sit uneasily astride his nervous mount and search the faces coming past him.

The horses were flighty and dangerous, and Marco knew he had no business riding them into crowded streets—but he had no choice that he could see. They could only stand so much of the fire at a time, and then he would have to let them trot away from it, their eyes rimmed in white. The explosions, which started down around the Mint and then pounded their way up along Van Ness, made things worse, scaring the endless crowds of people as well as his fidgeting mounts.

Marco understood perfectly what was happening. The firemen were dynamiting buildings along the edge of the blaze for the same reason a rancher would start a controlled backfire to stop an approaching wildfire. Van Ness was the widest street in the city next to Market. The firemen were trying to make the gap too wide for the conflagration to jump across it.

As the sun went down, Marco, tears stinging in his eyes, turned his mount around in a wide arc so that the other three could follow without tangling. By the time the dark had swallowed the city, he had found a vacant corner lot with trees and had claimed a spot along one edge where four trees grew close together. He had tethered his horses without anyone objecting. He had not even tried to lie down on the hard ground, but had propped himself up against a tree trunk and rested, letting himself doze lightly off and on.

Now, in the dusk before dawn, Marco rubbed at his painful knee, watching the sky lighten. There was an ugly red glow above the fires, as there had been most of the night, but it was fading as the sky brightened.

Slowly, bracing himself against the tree, Marco stood up. He worked out most of his kinks while he resaddled the horses and swung back up onto his horse. His only hope of finding Rachel safe and sound was to do it quickly. Every hour that passed increased the chance that trouble would find her first. Santana could fend for herself longer, perhaps indefinitely.

Marco rode onward, stopping only to ask a soldier what was being done for the refugees.

"The parks are being turned into camps, sir," the soldier answered politely, and Marco saw that he was probably younger Santana underneath the soot and weariness on his face.

"Where's the closest?"

"Five blocks up, then left on Sacramento," the soldier told him. "There's three hundred tents, maybe more. They'll give you a place to rest."

Marco thanked the boy and rode on once more. When he got to the little park, he rode the perimeter slowly, peering at the murky shapes of people sprawled out on the grass, admitting to himself that he had to wait for more light before he gave up on the park. He could easily ride straight past his daughter in the gray predawn light, even if she was outside a tent where he could see her.

As Marco guided his mount off the grass and dirt, back onto the cobblestone street that bordered the little park, the horse threw up its head and tossed its mane, whinnying. A second later, the three tethered to its saddle were crowding up, their ears pricked forward.

An instant later, Marco understood why. Just ahead of him, a wagon loaded with thick-waisted oaken barrels stood beside a military tent. Men in uniforms were talking beside it as soldiers wrestled the barrels to the ground. Just past them, another soldier was using a crowbar to open the casks. As he lifted one of the round lids, Marco saw a silvery shine and heard what the horses had heard. The sound of water.

* * *

><p>Brittany awoke and found that Santana's arms were still wrapped securely around her. Brittany remembered her touch and the amazing warmth of her mouth the night before and blushed. Only then did she remember the earthquake and the terrible fires. Wriggling gently from Santana's warm embrace, she sat up and untangled her skirts, retying her belt. Then she ducked down and peered from beneath the tent flap. The sky was graying, dawn was close.<p>

Suddenly lonely without the sounds of the northbound whistle and Mrs. Sylvester's rooster, she was caught in an aching memory of the boardinghouse that she had called home. Was it still there? Had it burned?

Brittany reached back into the tent to pull out her coat, and then stepped out of the tent and straightened, putting it on. The packet of her parents' things in one pocket and Arthur's journal in the other greeted her hands as she shoved them inside to warm them. She took a few steps to see past the tents, and then—when she couldn't—a few more. There were people sleeping all over the grass. She blushed again, wondering if the soldier had sent someone to share the tent with them and they hadn't noticed, or had been asleep, entwined in each other's arms.

A thrill of joy went through Brittany's body. Santana had told her that she loved her, and Brittany believed the Latina with every bit of her heart. Then the thrill subsided into a shiver as she recalled what Santana had said about her father probably not approving of her.

Brittany stood very still, and the morning cold gradually seeped into her heart. Santana had also said that she would give up her father's blessing and her inheritance before she would risk losing her. Brittany tried to believe that, too, but it was harder. Especially now, in the chill morning air, standing in a park crowded with refugees. Everyone was huddled together for warmth and comfort. Everyone was frightened. Maybe there were a thousand couples waking up this morning and wondering what love was really made of.

Brittany glanced back at the tent. Maybe she should run away right now. She could make her way alone. She always had. She felt her eyes sting and blinked back tears. Most likely Santana would wake up and make up some excuse to leave her here. Or, even if her intentions were good, the brunette would acquiesce when her father objected to the blonde. Brittany remembered all too well the day in the room at the Palace and how Marco had treated her. Even if Santana were a man, he was not going to want a chambermaid as a partner for his child.

Brittany pressed the back of her hand against her lips. She took a few steps without meaning to, as though she was edging away from the pain she imagined. It would almost be better to have a memory of a single, wonderful night and a dream of what might have been than to face the cold reality of losing Santana.

Brittany looked down at her soiled, worn dress and all the glow of the night seemed to fade. Who was she trying to fool? Caught up in the danger of the earthquake and the fire, Santana had clung to her, and imagined herself in love, but she would come to her senses soon enough. Brittany would never believe that the Latina had consciously taken advantage of her, but it would work out that way, nonetheless. Brittany had given herself willingly and refused to regret it. But the blonde could spare herself the pain of the inevitable.

Brittany found herself walking without really meaning to, glancing back every few steps, promising herself that if Santana appeared in the opening of the tent now, she would turn and run back. But she didn't. Brittany pulled in a deep breath as she made her way around a family sprawled inside a ring of trunks. A dachshund lying beside a blond-haired child lifted its head and snarled a low warning. Brittany kept going.

* * *

><p>Rachel asked three or four people if they had water to share and got regretful shrugs. She looked back toward Arthur's still form on the grass and decided to go a little farther. There were soldiers everywhere. No harm would come to her.<p>

"Is there drinking water?" she asked the next soldier she passed. He stopped and gazed at her for so long that she began to feel uncomfortable. She knew her hair was mussed and her skirt torn, but she looked no worse than anyone around her. Then she saw the little half smile on the man's mouth and blushed.

"Over there," he said finally. "You have family here?"

"Oh, yes," Rachel said quickly. "My father and four brothers." She pointed back toward the crowded area where Arthur lay sleeping.

The soldier tipped his cap and gestured. "Right over there, Miss. See the draft team?"

Rachel looked past him and noticed the beer wagon for the first time, unmistakable even in the early light because of its thick-spoked wheels and the sheer size of the team. It was full of barrels. She nodded her thanks and started toward it, her corset pinching as she walked. She felt dirty, and she longed to clean her teeth and comb her hair. She must look a perfect sight, and it bothered her, even though it was hardly her fault.

There was a line beginning to form near the wagon, and Rachel stepped through the sleeping people more quickly, picking as careful path as she was able. As she got closer, she could see the soldiers breaking open boxes and hear a clinking sound. She hoped they had tin one-pint growlers to carry water in, or cups at least. She wanted to waken Arthur with a drink of clean water. He had to be as thirsty as she was.

"Rachel!"

She spun around at the sound of her father's voice. He had dismounted and was walking toward her, as pack train of horses filing behind him. He beamed at her and held out his arms.

Without a single thought, she raced toward him, and when he swept her up into his arms, she giggled like a child.

"Oh, thank God you're safe," he said against her hair. "Oh, thank God, thank God." He held her away for a second and scrutinized her face. "Are you all right? Has anyone harmed you?"

"Arthur has saved me from any hurt," she said quickly and watched his face darken. "Papa, he has been perfectly proper and has only protected me."

"Do you know where your sister is?" he demanded from beside the hindmost horse. She watched him untie it and walk it forward, extending the reins to her.

"Mount up. I couldn't find a sidesaddle, so mind your skirts." He reached out to touch her cheek.

"I don't want to leave Arthur here, Papa," she interrupted.

He shook his head, scowling. "He's a grown man, Rachel. He can take care of himself."

"But I don't want to _leave_ him," she repeated. All night, in spite of the flames and the fear, she had felt like a woman—like someone who had taken her fate into her own hands. Now, facing her father, she felt reduced to childhood by his immutable sternness.

"But you are going to," she was saying in a low, terse voice. "This is not a time to argue, Rachel." He gripped her shoulder and guided her alongside her horse. "Let's go find your sister."

Angry and protesting, Rachel let him give her a leg up. She settled into the saddle awkwardly. Though she had grown up riding astride, she had gotten used to the sidesaddle over the past four or five years. Papa had insisted it was ladylike, never mind the progressive women and suffragists who thought sidesaddles were death traps.

"There are four horses," she began again. "Arthur could just come with us back to the ranch and—"

"No!" Marco exploded. "Now be still and do as I say."

He turned his stirrup to mount; she could see his eyes flicker from her face to her reins, and she understood his intent. The instant he was mounted he was going to jerk her reins free. Then he would lead her horse, as if she really were a child. _Why does he always have to act like I am incapable of doing anything on my own? I am perfectly able to control my own horse. I'm a woman of 17, not a child, _Rachel thought furiously to herself. She hated how controlling her father was, even after the catastrophe of the earthquake; she longed to be free of his overbearing oppression. Why couldn't he just trust her judgment for once?

* * *

><p>Brittany had stopped looking back. Santana was not going to awaken and call out her name. There would be no magical sign—it was up to her. And she was walking away, faster and faster, heading down the long slope. The sun was rising, blood red through the pall of smoke, and she could see pillars of black still billowing skyward over the city. Chinatown, she realized, had burned. She winced, imagining the intricate, crowded maze of wooden houses and shops on fire. It must have been terrifying.<p>

Brittany stumbled over a suitcase someone had left lying on the ground, and scolded herself for being so oblivious of her footing. Regaining her balance, she allowed herself one glance back toward the tent. Santana was still inside…The Latina had called her brave. But if she was, why was she running away now?

The question answered itself in Brittany's mind. Nothing stayed forever in her life. Nothing ever had. Every time she felt loved and safe and secure, something had happened to throw her back into the world, alone. Santana would most likely obey her father's wishes and marry a man of her own class.

Brittany nearly bumped into a gray-haired woman who was walking slowly, leading an elderly man along. They were carrying a little tin bucket like the ones the saloons gave out to steady customers. Brittany stared at it, her throat tightening at the sight of cool fresh water.

"There's a wagon down below, dear," the woman said in a friendly voice.

Brittany nodded, running her tongue over her lips. She would get a drink, then. It would give her time to think, time to decide whether she should run now, or risk the pain she was virtually certain would come if she did not.

* * *

><p>Marco Lopez was furious. Rachel sat on her mount, looking down at him, her pretty face smudged with ashes and dirt. Her eyes were wild. The earthquake and the danger of the fire had gotten her overexcited, he was sure. Or something had. She had spent the night with that damn Abrams, he was certain, and if the man had so much as touched her…<p>

"Papa?"

"Be still!" he shouted at her, unnerved by the directness of her gaze, the flash of reckless resolve he thought he saw in her eyes. She wasn't thinking clearly, wasn't _capable_ of a considered decision, and it was his duty to keep her from making a foolish one.

He twisted the stirrup around, snapping the leather straight, measuring the distance between the loop of Rachel's reins and his left hand. He would lead her out of here if it was the last thing he did. And he was going to shoot that blasted dandy if he ever saw him again.

Jamming his left foot into the stirrup, Marco leaned forward, reaching for the reins. But the grinding pain in his left knee startled him into crying out. Rachel was jerking her mount around as Marco hit the ground shoulders first, his foot caught in the stirrup. He tried to call out to her, but she was already lashing at her horse with the ends of the reins, hell-bent on escape and completely unaware that he was in trouble.

"Whoa!" Marco shouted as Rachel pounded off, her dark hair flying. His own horse was sidling, tossing its head. If it took off now, it would drag him and maybe even kill him. "Whoa!" he repeated, not nearly as loudly as he had meant to. The pain in his knee was sharp, terrible. With his shoulders on the ground, Marco wrenched around, trying to regain his feet as his horse sidled and stamped. It reared, and for an eternal second he saw the heavy hooves above him, and he waited to die. Then someone grabbed the animal's trailing reins, hauling it down a little to one side.

Impossibly, Marco saw a young woman with wild blonde hair step to the saddle. With an expert flip of the stirrup shoe, she freed his foot and he rolled clear, gasping at the stab of pain in his knee.

Then suddenly the girl was bending over him. "Mr. Lopez?" She backed the horse up, and he saw her glance at the other two to make sure they were standing steady before she spoke again. "Are you all right?"

"I will be," he grunted, fighting to stand. His leg bore his weight, even though it hurt like Hades. He reached out and grasped the rope of the closer of the two spare mounts and used it to keep his balance. Their heads were high, but they were calm enough.

"Was that Rachel?" The tall girl's voice startled him.

He nodded, staring at her. "And who the hell are you?"

She swung up onto the horse like a man, settling into the saddle with ease and authority, ignoring the too-long stirrups in favor of her own practiced balance. She looked at him. "Santana is in tent 39. I'll bring Rachel back if I can. I'm the chambermaid."

Before he could react, she whirled the horse around and was urging it into a gallop, going in the direction Rachel had taken.

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><p><strong>AN: Will Brittany catch up with Rachel? What will happen when she does? What will Santana do when she's woken by her father? Will she tell him about her love for Brittany? If she does, how will Marco take it? Find out the answers to these questions and more when we return with the exciting finale to _Impossible to Ignore!_ Teeheehee, I love doing that. :) Ahem. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! :D**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Greetings, everyone!**

**So, yeah, this is the last chapter. PSYCH! This is not the end. I have decided to include an epilogue to this story to give you guys a glimpse of ranch life for Brittany and Santana, and how Brittany fits in with Marco and the men working on the ranch. You pretty much have my Beta to thank for that, lol. She and her suggestions that come with every chapter I send her just kind of sealed the deal. I was kinda/sorta, but not really, toying with the idea of making the story longer or doing a sequel, since one or two people mentioned it, but it wasn't until my Beta said something that I made up my mind. ;) So...yay?  
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**Unrelated to this story, you know the good thing about the _Glee_ cliffhanger? All the amazing angst-filled Faberry stories! Seems like _everyone's_ doing it, but I still can't get enough. Maybe in 7 weeks, but not right now, haha. ;)**

**Anywho, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! :D**

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><p>Arthur woke and was startled to find Rachel gone. He jumped up, expecting to see her close by—because she had fawned over him all night long. Another kind of man would have taken advantage of her, he was sure. But he wasn't after the easy prize. He wanted the whole shooting match—the ranch, the life, the respect.<p>

"Rachel?" he called out. It was barely sunup. Where would she have gone? Then he realized what the answer must be. She had probably gone looking for a water closet to use. Had the soldiers set up some kind of latrine? They would soon, he was certain. They would have to.

Arthur scanned the faces he could see, and then squinted into the distance. He wasn't sure whether to go looking for her or stay put so she could find him when she came back. The thought that her father would hardly respect such a passive attitude started him walking. His whole plan hinged on Marco Lopez being grateful for Arthur's honorable care of his daughter throughout this dangerous disaster.

Ten minutes later, Arthur began changing his plan. If Rachel had been silly enough to leave the house of her father's friends, maybe she was silly enough to have wandered off again. The last thing he wanted to do was have to admit to Marco Lopez that he had somehow lost his daughter. He clenched his fists, furious with her for ruining everything. He walked the park once more, end to end, and could not see her. Then, cursing, he started away, heading toward the train station, shaking his head. Damn the earthquake and to hell with silly girls. He would find an older woman next time—a wealthy widow. One with sense enough to appreciate his attentions and with money of her own.

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><p>"Santana Lopez?"<p>

Jerked into wakefulness by her father's voice, Santana sat up and saw that Brittany was gone. Then she remembered the whole wonderful night, and the terror that had preceded it—all in one clashing instant.

"Santana, answer me!"

"I'm here, Papa," she said, standing up and stepping out of the door flap. Her father was leading two horses, an expression on his face that Santana had never seen before.

"Papa, are you all right?"

"It's my knee. Get me into this damn saddle. We have to find your sister." Santana shook her head, trying to understand as her father launched into a staccato explanation of Rachel's rebellious escape.

"But I have to find Brittany first, Papa," she interrupted, and saw her father's face darken.

"And who in blazes is Brittany?"

"She was our chambermaid at the Palace," Santana said curtly. "And I love her." She watched her father's face go through another unfamiliar change—somewhere between astonishment and fury.

"This chambermaid—can she ride?"

"Like a race-jockey," Santana said, wondering why her father was wasting time on such a strange question, and then remembered herself wanting to ask Brittany the same thing. She blinked. Nothing was making sense.

"Get me up. On the right side—my good leg," Papa ordered. "I know where they both are."

Santana slung her father into the saddle awkwardly, and then threw one stirrup over the saddle as she tightened the cinch on her mount. She mounted in one fluid motion. Her father nodded and set his hat, and they rode cautiously through the crowds, letting the horses canter only once they were back on the road.

"You love her?" Papa asked over the sound of the hoofbeats as the sun burst over the horizon.

"Yes!" Santana shouted, and saw her father grimace.

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><p>Brittany's horse was fleet-footed and agile, and she was grateful. Of course, a wealthy rancher like Marco would pick the best of the four to ride himself. As she maneuvered through the rubble and the uneven, damaged streets, she could just see the flashing of Rachel's white blouse up ahead. Rachel rode expertly, Brittany could tell, weaving her horse in and out of the scattered crowds. She wasn't galloping flat out—that was impossible, with the streets full of overturned wagons and abandoned goods, and people walking like exhausted automatons—but she was keeping up as fast a pace as could be managed.<p>

Brittany urged her horse onward, keeping Rachel in sight as she turned up a wider street and then turned again, heading downhill. The farther they got from the tall brick buildings in the center of town, the clearer the streets became. The wooden structures here had skidded sideways on their foundations, but there were no bricks scattered in the roadway. And the fire had not yet come this far.

In one long, clear stretch that lasted about a half mile, Rachel let her horse gallop, clattering along like a runaway. Brittany sat her horse carefully, keeping her balance centered high, over its shoulders, helping it as much as she could. She gained a little ground and wondered if Rachel was even aware she was being pursued. She had not looked back once.

Rachel pulled her horse into another wide, galloping turn, and Brittany followed, a little closer behind. She let her mount out again, but this time the horse didn't extend as fully—it was getting winded. Brittany patted the horse's sweaty shoulder and leaned back a little, allowing it to slow, to rest. It was enough to keep Rachel in sight.

Rachel made two more right-hand turns, taking a roundabout route that could lead eventually back to the park, Brittany realized. She was calming down, no doubt, and beginning to wonder what she should do next. Brittany just kept the gap between them from widening. She was a good half mile behind when Rachel reined in abruptly, slowing her mount to a trot.

Brittany saw her chance to close the distance, so she leaned forward, urging her mount faster, reining to one side to miss a board with long iron nails projecting from it and then to the other, to avoid a smashed piano. She rode hard, expecting Rachel to hear her horse's hoofbeats and look back, but she didn't.

"Rachel!" Brittany shouted when she got close enough.

The girl wrenched around in her saddle, hair flying and eyes wide. She frowned, looking puzzled, as Brittany cantered alongside.

"Who are you?" Rachel's eyes were full of genuine confusion. Brittany felt a strange hollowness inside herself. Santana had told her about her father and sister, and of course they had never met —not really—but the oddness of the circumstances still bothered her. How could it be that the Lopez family had seen Brittany as often as she had seen them, but, aside from Santana, the others had never once looked at her with enough interest to recall her face?

"You father asked me to bring you back," Brittany said aloud. "He is hurt and—"

"Papa's hurt?" Rachel interrupted.

"You didn't see because you had already turned, but he tried to mount and it was as though his leg just gave way. He fell and—"

"His bad knee," Rachel said, and there was such anguish in her voice that Brittany began to like her. "Is he all right?"

Brittany nodded. "He will be, I think. Are you?"

"He wants me to stop seeing Arthur and I…" Rachel began, and then she struck her fist against the pommel of the saddle. "And once Papa makes up his mind you can't argue with him, ever."

Brittany was acutely aware of the small weight in her coat pocket. She reached for the journal, careful not to pull her own small packet free as she drew it out. "You must read this."

Rachel's eyes went wide. "Whatever for? I should get back to my father and—"

"He would want you to read it," Brittany assured her. She leaned out of her saddle and Rachel reached to take the journal. "It's Arthur's," Brittany said, and watched Rachel's eyes widen even more. "I stole it from his room to give to you. I was a chambermaid at the Palace Hotel before—all this." Brittany waved one hand at the damaged buildings along the street and the towering pillars of smoke to the east.

Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but Brittany held up one hand. "Read it first."

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><p>Santana had a hard time keeping up with her father. In spite of the awkward angle of his left leg in his stirrup, he pushed his horse as hard as anyone could have through the debris-littered streets.<p>

Two soldiers had given them the general direction the girls had taken, but beyond that, they had no idea. Santana watched her father rein in over and over, slowing just enough to call out to passersby. Some seemed not to hear the question, others looked startled as they emerged timidly from their front doors and walked into the early sunlight. But every third or fourth time someone would nod and gesture, indicating the direction the girls had ridden.

The new day was stained with the color of the smoke, the odd, sifted light casting a ruddy film over everything, changing even the green of the trees slightly. Nothing looked quite _familiar_. Everywhere along the streets people were appearing, walking in slow circles around their homes, assessing damage, talking to their neighbors in low voices. They all kept glancing eastward, toward the fires.

"Have you seen two girls riding fast?" Papa called out to a group of men who had congregated on a corner. Santana pulled her horse in as a tall fellow in a suitcoat pointed up a side street.

Following her father's lead, Santana rounded the corner at a canter and felt her heart leap as she spotted two riders about a half mile up the road. They were still mounted but had stopped their horses. It looked like they were talking. One turned, and Santana saw the golden cape of Brittany's long hair flare out from her shoulders.

"Come on," Papa said and leaned forward in his saddle, grunting with pain, about to urge his tired horse into a gallop.

"No, Papa. Wait."

Santana leaned out to grasp her father's reins, slowing her own mount and her father's at the same time. She pulled both animals to a halt and heard her father curse. "Let them talk, Papa. I think it could be important."

Marco spat, leaning to the side, and then straightened, frowning. "And would you mind telling me what a chambermaid has to say to my daughter that could be so important this morning?"

"I would rather not, Papa," Santana said evenly.

The Latina watched as her father's exasperated expression changed slowly to an angry scowl. Santana let the silence between them deepen. She knew Papa resented this—but if he found out what a scoundrel Abrams really was, poor Rachel would never hear the end of it. Santana exchanged a glance with her father, and then looked back at the girls in the distance. They were still stopped, leaning sideways in their saddles, their heads close together.

Santana let go of her father's reins and nudged her own horse into a sedate walk, relieved when Papa matched the slow pace.

"I have something else to tell you, Papa," Santana began. "This probably is not a good time, but—"

"It isn't," her father interrupted brusquely.

"I'm not going to marry a man. I'm going to spend the rest of my life with Brittany."

Santana waited with bated breath while her father reined in, stared at her, and then put his horse back into an ambling walk. "She is beautiful, in a wild way."

"She's much more than that," Santana said, astonished at her father's comment.

Her father didn't answer for so long that they were almost within shouting distance of Brittany and Rachel before he spoke. When he did answer, it was short and to the point. "All right, then."

Santana resisted the urge to whoop aloud with joy. She barely managed to nod respectfully. "You won't be sorry, Papa."

"You might."

"Never, Papa."

"I am going to rewrite my will. No part of the ranch will ever be yours. Everything will go to Rachel—and to whatever proper _husband_ I can find her."

Santana turned to look at her father, swallowing hard. She had dreamed of running the ranch for as long as she could remember. "You don't mean that."

"I do."

Santana stared at her father's angular profile. She had been prepared for anger, for an argument—not for this cold announcement, and it shocked her into silence. But she squared her shoulder. If the choice was the ranch or Brittany, the Latina would find a way to build her own damn ranch. Brittany would help her, work alongside her, the way her mother had worked alongside Papa. She pressed her lips into a grim line and rode on in silence.

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><p>Brittany spotted them first. She leaned toward Rachel, who was still turning the pages of the journal, her face streaked with tears. "You father and Santana are coming."<p>

"Oh, no!" Rachel whispered, reaching up to wipe the wet from her cheeks. She shoved the journal back at Brittany, glancing sidelong up the road. "Hide it, please. Destroy it. If Papa ever sees it—"

"I will burn it the first chance I have," Brittany reassured her. "I did show Santana."

Rachel nodded, sniffling. "She won't tell Papa." She turned to swipe again at her face, streaking the soot and dirt.

Brittany looked up to see Santana smiling widely at her as the brunette rode closer—and a grim, ugly expression on Marco Lopez's face. His left leg was held oddly straight, the stirrup jutting outward. He was obviously in pain…but it was more than that.

"Can you tell I was crying?" Rachel whispered.

Brittany lowered her chin and spoke from the side of her mouth. "Yes. Over your father being hurt."

Rachel flashed her a grateful glance, and then turned her horse to face her father as he rode up. "Papa, I am so sorry. I didn't see you fall. I didn't know—"

"I'll be all right," Mr. Lopez interrupted her. Brittany was caught staring at his angry face, as his eyes flickered past Rachel to meet her own. "I have told my daughter that she can be with whatever chambermaid of no fortune or family she wishes, so long as she understands that it means giving up her inheritance and leaving the ranch forever."

Brittany drew in a painful breath and looked at Santana, her heart constricting. "You can't do that. The ranch is everything to you!" She felt tears springing into her eyes.

"_You _have become everything to me," Santana said, riding close enough to cup the blonde's cheek with her hand and look deeply into her eyes. "We can build our own place somewhere."

"Let's get going then, Rachel," Marco said sharply. "I want to go to the Palace if can get there. Maybe something can be salvaged from your trunks, if there have been guards and everything isn't burned up or stolen by now." He paused. "Santana? Will you come back with us to get your things?"

Brittany glanced at Marco Lopez. He was looking back and forth between Santana and Rachel, his eyes skipping across her as though she were invisible now.

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><p>Rachel rode off to one side all the way back to the Palace Hotel. She tried to smile a little at her sister and Brittany, glad they hadn't just ridden off by themselves—though that seemed to be exactly what Papa had wanted them to do. It was obvious they were in love and happier than any pair she had ever seen, and she was glad for them. But her own heart was broken and uncertain, and her mind reeled with questions. How could she have so misjudged Arthur? Was she really like all the people Santana despised, shallow and silly? What had Arthur thought when he woke up alone and she was not there? Had he even cared?<p>

"Keep up, Rachel," Papa shouted, and she pressed her heels into her mount's sides, speeding up. Papa was making a trail boss' gesture, a rolling motion with one hand that meant she was to ride beside him. She sighed and obeyed.

"What do you think of her?" He jutted his chin at Brittany and Santana, riding a ways ahead, riding close together.

Rachel arched her dark brows. "You're asking _my_ opinion?"

He nodded curtly. "I am."

Rachel smiled, her heart a little lighter—her father _did_ trust her judgment. "I think she is kind and good-hearted and can ride as well as any Lopez ever rode—including you. It shouldn't matter that she's not a man. Their love is true."

"Burt would like her, you think?"

"Burt will love her, especially if she can cook."

"Can she?"

Rachel laughed. "Papa, I don't know."

He nodded. "If she can't, we could hire Elizabeth Mason and save her from that wretch she married once and for all." He paused. "If she made it through all this." He took a deep breath, and then fell back into silence as they wove their way into the desolate streets south of Market, where the fire had come and gone. Rachel stayed beside him, partly so that she could keep glancing at him instead of at the poor dead horses and the people sitting in despair on the curbs.

There were still flames in places among the blackened boards and fallen chimneys, but the worst of the fire was north of them now. An ambulance rattled past, spooking the horses, and Rachel said a prayer for whoever was inside.

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><p>As he led his daughter up Montgomery Street toward Market, Marco Lopez saw what he had been afraid he would see. The Palace had been completely burned out. Maybe there would be an insurance settlement later, maybe not. For now at least, he was out seven or eight thousand dollars in fancy clothes for Rachel, two-fifths of that for Santana and himself, his favorite standup hat, a pair of good boots, and his own trunk and suitcase—as well as the new trunks he had bought to hold Rachel's clothing.<p>

"I don't know that we can afford to come to town again anytime soon," he told Rachel. Her head was tipped back. She was looking at the blackened rows of broken bay windows overhead.

"I don't care, Papa," she answered. "I am just grateful that none of us got hurt. And that Santana found her love, Papa," she added, gesturing past the fallen stone and bricks to where Santana and Brittany stood beside their horses. Santana was holding both their reins, and they were talking in low voices.

He really did not like the relationship his eldest daughter had with that…that _maid_. It was bad enough that Santana had to ensure her social ruin by falling in love with a woman. Why did that woman also have to be a destitute orphan?

He had raised Santana, had taught her everything he knew about ranching so that she could take over for him one day. Rachel was never really interested in ranch work, and while it was unconventional to leave such an inheritance to a daughter, Marco wanted to keep the ranch in the family, and Santana truly loved the ranch—he knew she would do him proud. But then she had to ruin it by refusing to adhere to social norms.

Marco had not wanted to write Santana out of his will, but he had to once Santana simply accepted her fate without argument. _She must really care for that girl_, Marco begrudgingly mused to himself. He did not want to lose his eldest child. Especially not after the disaster of the earthquake, when he was so afraid he would never see either of his children again.

But what could he do? Could he really accept his daughter's decision to be with the chambermaid? _I certainly don't want to see her go, as callous as I may seem on the outside—I feel as though I just got her back. Perhaps we can come to some sort of agreement..._

Marco's thoughts trailed off as he glanced over once more to where Santana and Brittany were standing. They were standing so close they may as well have been kissing, but Marco couldn't bring himself to cringe at the idea once he saw his daughter's expression. Her face was the very picture of elation and adoration as she gazed into the blonde's eyes. He had not seen his daughter that happy since before her mother became ill. _Well, if that's not love, I don't know what is._

His mind made up, Marco sighed, loud and long. Then he shook his head. "Well, the hell with it then."

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><p>Brittany stood transfixed, staring into Santana's dark eyes while the Latina told her she loved her for the tenth time. Brittany had been counting, and now she was sure the brunette meant it. For the first time in her life, the blonde was certain of something. Santana loved her. Santana was willing to give up everything she had assumed about her life and future for her. Brittany leaned toward her, and Santana embraced her, wrapping her arms around the blonde's neck and savoring the closeness of their bodies. Slowly leaning back enough to look into her sparkling blue eyes, Santana whispered, "I know we can't get married, and I know that we won't be able to love each other as openly as we would like, but would you do me the honor of spending the rest of your life with me?"<p>

"Yes," Brittany whispered back, tears slightly blurring her vision. "Oh, God, _yes._ I love you so much, Santana."

Unable to do what she wanted—crash her mouth into Brittany's and kiss her until the cows came home—because of the various bystanders, Santana settled for softly brushing the tears away from Brittany's cheeks with her thumbs and leaning back into the taller woman, holding her even closer than before. After a minute or so, Santana reluctantly leaned back again. "Will you come back to the ranch with us to get my things? If Papa will let us, that is. After that, we can go wherever you like."

Brittany started swaying as they continued to embrace each other, neither girl wanting the contact to end. "I have nowhere to go." She shivered, thinking about the boardinghouse—and the pile of ash and ruin that had taken its place. Poor Mrs. Sylvester. She had made it through so many things in her life, why not this one too? Brittany felt her eyes fill with fresh tears.

At that moment, Marco Lopez turned his horse around. He rode toward them with such purpose in his eyes that Brittany fought back her tears and struggled against the urge to run. But when he got closer, she realized that he didn't really look angry anymore. He looked uneasy.

"Was that a proposal?" he demanded.

Santana nodded and smiled brightly. "And she said yes."

Marco Lopez was silent for nearly a minute. Brittany could hear shouts from inside the gutted lower floors of the Palace. Behind her, the clipped rhythm of hooves on the cobblestones rose and fell again.

"So, perhaps an inheritance would be an appropriate congratulations gift?" Mr. Lopez smiled, a crooked, tentative smile.

"Hardly," Rachel said from behind him. They all looked up at her, startled. "That was always hers, Papa, and you know she has earned it."

Marco Lopez shrugged, smiling up at his daughter. "I suppose you're right. I will have to think of something else."

Santana, a radiant smile upon her face, turned and caught Brittany up in her arms, spinning her around and kissing her cheek as they both laughed joyously. When she settled the blonde back down on her feet, Santana released her to embrace her father. Brittany watched them step apart, still looking at each other, still smiling warily.

"I apologize," Mr. Lopez said.

Santana's face was grave. "And I accept."

A silence came between them, stretching out until it was brittle and awkward.

"Santana has talked a lot about the ranch," Brittany said timidly. They all turned to face her. "I can't wait to see it," she finished, feeling her cheeks heat up.

"Then we should get started," Mr. Lopez said. "I've had about all the excitement of city life I can stand for a while. How about you, Brittany?"

"I agree completely, sir," she answered with a straight face.

Santana laughed aloud as she gave Brittany a leg up onto her horse, and then helped her father mount. Rachel winked at Brittany, and then covered her mouth with a soot-smudged hand, her eyes dancing. Marco Lopez turned his horse, and they followed him down Market Street toward the ferry.

"I love you," Santana whispered as the bay appeared before them, glittering in the morning sun. Brittany reached out. The Latina took her hand, intertwining their fingers, and they rode close enough so that their knees touched, all the way to the edge of the glittering water. Santana pointed across it. "I can't wait to get you home."

Brittany smiled at her love, tightening her grip on the brunette's hand, and then turned her head to hide her tears as they took their places in the line of people waiting for the ferry. The sun was warm. Overhead, gulls wheeled in circles across the blue sky, far beyond the haze of smoke.

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><p><strong>AN: _D'aw_, so precious. ;) You know what's funny? They fell in love in two days, aside from Santana's interest in Brittany before the earthquake. Too fast? Too bad, I say. People used to get married after a lot less interaction than our heroines had. ;) Besides, Brittana can't deny they're made for each other. ;)  
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**Ahem! So, shameless plug time. I may be almost done with this story, but I've also started another, if you want to read it; it's called _A Dangerous Masquerade_. If you like this story, I think you'll like that one, too. Buuuut, only if you want. I hate it when people beg for reviews or for people to read their stuff, but...I don't know, I just thought _some_ of you _might_ be interested. No skin off my back if you aren't. *shrugs* :)**

**I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and I will be back with the epilogue...sometime soon, hopefully lol. :D**


	15. Epilogue

**A/N: Hello, readers! Happy Ides of March! :D  
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**Yeah, so, we have come to the end of our journey *****sniffles*, but it's been fun, right? :)**

****Phew. I'm sorry for the wait you guys. Turns out that thing called writer's block is real. Go figure. Anyway, I hope I make up for it with this _massive_ epilogue! :) Seriously, even I was wondering when the hell I was going to shut up lol. ;)****

**Before we get on to the chapter, things must be said. _Thank you so much_ to everyone who has alerted and/or favorited the story (or me! Not going to lie; that's pretty awesome), and everyone who has reviewed. Also thank you to everyone who simply read this story. :)**

**Oh! Next, people who have reviewed chapter 14, but I couldn't respond to in a PM.**

**_Cali Cheerleading Swagger_ - Thank you so much for the review! *blushes* :) And aw, your review wasn't tiny at all! Trust me, your review totally made my day! I love it when new people review (not that I don't love all of my regulars to death, either!), and your review definitely helped me gather the desire to write an epilogue even more, so thanks for that! Anyway, I'm so glad you are liking this story, and I really hope this epilogue doesn't disappoint. :D**

**_Clara _- Aw, thanks for the kind words! I hope you enjoy the ending. :D  
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**Shout outs to reviewers who have reviewed every/nearly every chapter!**

**_Hummel-Evans_**** (or, the reviewer formerly known as _JustAStrangerPassingBy_)** **- Your reviews...awesome. That's all there is to say, really lol. I have also enjoyed the various discussions we have had. :)**

**_wkgreen _****- I will forever love all of your comments and speculations! I'm really glad you got an account, too! :)**

**_meatisadelicacy_**** - I don't think I ever told you this, but I do love your username; it's clever. Also, your comments/reviews always make me laugh. Thanks! :D**

**_Pridemunkeyz_ - Your reviews also always made me laugh; I loved all of your comments! :) Also! I swear, I haven't forgotten that I need to respond to your message. It's just...I've been so busy. Which sounds like an awful excuse, I know, but it's also the truth. I WILL get to it soon, I promise. :)  
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**_dagleek_**** - You haven't reviewed since chapter 10, but I still feel you should get recognition because you had reviewed pretty much every chapter before that. Though...maybe you've stopped reading? Meh, whatever, I'm still saying thanks. :)**

**Last thing to do is shout out to my Beta, who continues to be awesome each chapter. :)**

**Enjoy! :D  
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><p><em>Late February, 1907<em>

The loud clanging of the call bell just outside the ranch house roused Santana from a deep slumber. On the eighth ring of the bell, Santana groaned slightly and her eyes fluttered open. A smile blossomed across the Latina's face as she found herself, as always, still entwined with her beautiful blonde counterpart from the night before.

Even when they went to bed angry with each other, they always found themselves wrapped up in one another's arms by the morning. They seemed to make up from whatever disagreement they had the previous night subconsciously while they slumbered.

Santana sighed contentedly as she stroked some of Brittany's golden hair away from her face, which was pressed comfortably into the crook of Santana's shoulder. The movement, more than the piercing chime of the call bell, awoke the former maid. Brittany opened her eyes, stretched, while still entangled with Santana, and then glanced up into the brunette's smiling face.

"Good morning, Britt," Santana greeted with a warm smile.

"Good morning," Brittany said through a yawn. Then she leaned up and brushed her lips against the Latina's. This had been their morning routine ever since Brittany first came to live at the Ambling Acres Ranch after the earthquake in San Francisco the previous April. Santana wouldn't change a thing. She loved waking up to the blonde every morning and going to bed with her every night—their routine never seemed to get stale. "What time is it?" the blonde inquired as she sat up a little more fully, only slightly disengaging from her hold on the brunette.

"A little after three-thirty. Papa's hoping the last of the calving can be completed today." Santana chuckled a bit to herself. "I've always tried to tell him that he can't put the cows to his schedule. They'll birth their calves when the time is right, not when he wants them to, but you know Papa…"

Brittany laughed quietly along with Santana. "He's got a stubborn streak a mile long," she agreed, her comment causing their hushed chortling to erupt into full-blown laughter.

Their mirth was interrupted by the call bell ringing madly, indicating it was now three-forty, twenty minutes before everyone started their work for the day.

Pressing one final, lingering kiss to Brittany's soft lips, Santana swung her feet to the floor and approached the wardrobe opposite the bed, Brittany following shortly after. They dressed in their work skirts, corsets, and blouses in relative silence in their spacious bedroom. Marco had given them free reign over the west wing of the ranch house—it was like their own home, only sharing the kitchen and living room with the rest of the house—which would have gone to Santana and her husband anyway. His gesture might not have seemed like much, but Santana appreciated the effort her father made to accept her relationship with Brittany.

She just wished her father was as accommodating when it came to the ranch work. At first, Marco had let Brittany ride with Santana, doing all of the housekeeping, such as mending fences, checking herds, repairing corrals, and other such duties. And then during the spring and summer works when Santana was busy meeting buyers and market representatives with Marco, Brittany had been able to continue doing her duties around the ranch by herself—of course, not without Marco sending a ranch hand throughout the day to check her work.

But then November rolled around—the time when they started to herd the cattle from the high country back to the ranch in preparation for the calving season that began in January. Santana had to ride point at the front of the herd with her father so that she could learn what would be expected of her as the head of the ranch once Marco passed the reins to her. As much as she hated to admit it, Santana still had a lot to learn about efficiently running a ranch on her own.

With Santana riding up front with her father, Marco had Brittany ride drag, the position behind the cattle, where the dust kicked up by the animals was greatest, but the job the simplest—watch the cattle and steer any wayward cow back to the group. Santana had argued with her father over Brittany's placement at the butt of the herd. She didn't understand why Marco had done that when Brittany's skill with her horse and guiding the animals was greater than some of the ranch hands riding flank, the next position up the herd. The Latina had argued that one of the less skilled ranch hands should have taken drag while Brittany rode flank, but Marco had stoutly refused to listen to his daughter.

He had argued that Brittany wasn't experienced enough at herding cattle yet and riding drag would teach her what she needed to do while causing the least disruption in the flow of the herding. That was his final verdict, but Santana knew the truth. Her father didn't believe what Santana knew to be fact—that Brittany had anything of value to offer the ranch—and he felt the blonde's presence to be tedious at best. Marco was simply trying to use Brittany's lack of herding experience as an excuse for why he only ever gave her menial tasks.

This continued all through the calving season. Santana had pleaded with her father to allow Brittany to help with the birthing, which required all available ranch hands around the clock, but Marco had refused, not willing to pay any heed to his daughter's request. Instead, he gave Brittany tasks that would normally be reserved for old George Cook—mucking out the cow stalls, feeding the cows and heifers hay, and bottle feeding the calves too weak to get proper nourishment from their mothers—jobs that were essential, and yet looked down upon by the other ranch hands, who took their cue from Marco and treated Brittany as though she weren't worthy of more significant duties.

To her credit, Brittany never once complained and always said she understood Marco's reasoning when Santana would apologize for how Marco treated her. She simply went about her business, getting up with everyone else, and finishing well after dusk. But Santana saw in her crystal blue eyes that she was hurt by the treatment she was receiving. It was agony for Santana to watch the blonde put on a show of indifference as she went about whatever meaningless tasks Marco assigned her. But try as she might, Santana couldn't sway her father's opinion, and like it or not, he was still in charge—she had no say yet as to how he divvied up the work among the ranch hands—and that feeling of helplessness didn't sit well with the Latina.

Snapping out her thoughts, Santana turned toward the taller woman looking out the window, her golden hair already braided and pinned in her trademark fashion that the brunette loved. She walked over to the blonde and wrapped her arms around her from behind, feeling Brittany lean back and relax into the embrace immediately. "I'm going to try to convince my father to let you help with the birthing today. It's not right that you haven't been able to help because he is being stubborn," the Latina murmured as she nuzzled her nose into Brittany's neck, breathing in the blonde's scent she couldn't get enough of.

Santana felt, more than heard, Brittany sigh. "It's all right, Santana. I never expected him to accept me on the ranch right away. I can't say I'm exactly happy about it, but as long as I have you," she turned to look the brunette in the eye, smiling warmly, "I'm perfectly content to jump through all of his hoops until he does acknowledge me." Brittany punctuated her statement with a quick kiss to Santana's nose.

The Latina couldn't stop a wide grin from spreading across her face. "Just when I think I can't love you any more, you go and say something like that to prove me wrong," she said as she leaned up on her toes a bit to properly kiss her love.

Just as Santana opened her mouth to deepen the kiss, the call bell started its incessant loud clanging again, notifying them that it was now four o'clock and time for everyone to be starting their daily duties. _Blast it all._ Groaning at the interruption, Santana reluctantly removed her lips from Brittany's. "I suppose we should head down now." She sighed as she turned to make the short walk from their bedroom down to the barn where the ranch hands were surely gathered around Marco as they waited for him to give them their orders for the day. "Well, at least the good thing is that this is the last day of calving, so things will settle down for a bit," the Latina said as she reached back to entwine her hand with Brittany's—they would have to let go when they reached the group at the barn, but they took every opportunity they could to show their affection for one another.

The girls arrived at the barn just as Marco was beginning his daily allocation of duties. As always, he didn't verbally acknowledge his daughter's or Brittany's presence, but merely nodded curtly and sent a piercing glare to Santana, silently telling his daughter that he wasn't pleased with her late arrival. Brittany, he didn't care much about—she wasn't that essential to the running of the ranch—but he thought that Santana should have been there before anyone started showing up, since she was going to be in charge one day and needed to start asserting her authority whenever possible.

Santana simply nodded her greeting in return and went to stand beside her father silently as he continued handing out his orders. "Mitch, Frank, and Ben, you'll be working on bonding some of the reluctant cows with their calves. I don't have to tell you how important it is that these cows acknowledge their offspring. And, finally, Brittany, your tasks today are the same—cleaning stalls, and feeding cows and calves. Dismissed!"

As everyone disbursed to begin their day's work, Santana approached her father. "Papa, why don't you let George take over Brittany's duties today, since it's the last day? She can help me birth some of the calves. Or, she's great with animals, so I know she could help the other ranch hands with the bonding. How is she going to learn anything about ranching if she's always put on cleaning and feeding duty?" _Well, I doubt this will do anything, but I can at least try to get him to see reason,_ she thought to herself.

Marco turned toward his daughter, a scowl etched upon his stern face. "No, Santana. The last day of calving is just as, if not _more_, important than the first day. I cannot take the risk to have someone in the way—someone who doesn't know what they are doing. We don't have time to train her. Her tasks are fit for her experience," he explained, again, irritated at his daughter's audacity. As far as he was concerned, Brittany should just stay at the ranch house and see to the household duties, like Rachel did.

"But, Pap—" Santana began to argue.

"Silence! I will not argue with you about this anymore, Santana. She has her duties, you have yours. Now, do them!" He snapped, turning on his heel and marching off in the direction of the pasture that held the last of the pregnant cows and heifers.

With a resigned sigh, Santana followed, casting a remorseful glance toward Brittany, who had watched the exchange from her position in the barn. Brittany answered with a small smile of her own, thanking Santana for her effort, once again, to get Marco to accept the blonde as a valued member of the ranch, and then turned around to start her own duties for the day.

* * *

><p>It was mid-afternoon, when Brittany was returning to bottle feed the calves in the pens just outside the north side of the barn, that the blonde noticed something out of place. There, wandering aimlessly between the granary and the calf pens, was a cow. Brittany recognized the cow as being one of the ones that had left her calf as soon as it was born the day before—she remembered this one because, even though all of the Lopez cattle were brown in color, this cow had speckles of white all along its tail. The ranch hands had been trying to bond it to her calf, and it appeared that she had escaped again.<p>

Brittany placed the feeding bottle she was holding on a stack of hay bales she would use to feed the cows later on and cautiously approached the renegade cow. As far as she could tell, the Lopez cattle were comfortable around people, but they were easily spooked if they felt they were being ambushed. She called out softly to animal, but did not reach out to her so the new mother could get used to Brittany's presence.

"What are you doing all the way over here, girl?" Brittany muttered to the cow, slowly reaching out and stroking her side softly. "Why aren't you with your baby? I bet it misses you."

The cow snorted in response, as though disagreeing with Brittany's statement.

"No, I'm sure your calf does. Every newborn longs for their mothers when they are not around, and I'm sure you're going to be a great one," Brittany reassured the cow, which seemed to work, since the cow started to turn back in the direction of the pasture she escaped from.

Brittany followed suit, still gently rubbing the cow's side and guiding her in the right direction whenever she seemed to veer off course. "That's a-girl, keep going," Brittany softly spoke to the cow along the way. She knew that the cow didn't understand a word she said, but she also knew that speaking to the animal in a quiet, soothing voice helped keep the behemoth calm and get her to obey Brittany's orders.

"What are you doing?" The loud voice startled both Brittany and the cow, but Brittany kept the new mother calm by stroking her neck and speaking softly to her, telling her everything was okay.

Then the blonde turned to the source of the interruption and was met with the unwelcome presence of Mitch Garrison. No matter how friendly she was to him, the cocky ranch hand only ever regarded her with distain. She frowned as she answered, "I found this cow wandering around the granary, so I was bringing her back to the bonding pasture."

Mitch scoffed at this, clearly disbelieving that Brittany could actually be capable of such a thing. He didn't like the tall woman. As the self-proclaimed most eligible bachelor among the ranch hands, he had been poised to begin the process of courting Santana when the Lopez family returned from San Francisco—he was certain she would come back beau-less—but the presence of the blonde woman seemed to change everything.

Before, Santana had been genial and, Mitch believed, open to his advances, but when she returned after the earthquake with Brittany in tow, the only time the two women were not together was when they were working in different areas of the ranch. Even when he did catch Santana alone, she didn't pay him any heed at all, making him wonder if maybe she had never been interested at all. However, he was convinced that the blonde, who was always around, made Santana's behavior toward him change. He didn't know the exact nature of their relationship, but he didn't like the hold Brittany had on the Latina.

Now, he had to settle for using his charm on the youngest Lopez, Rachel. _She's much more accommodating, anyway_, he mused to himself as he approached Brittany and the prodigal cow. "I'll take it from here. You should go back to your baby-feeding," Mitch told her with an arrogant smirk firmly planted on his smug face.

Brittany resisted the urge to snap back at him and instead turned back to the cow and whispered softly into her ear, asking her to be the bigger animal and not kick the arrogant ranch hand, no matter how much he deserved it. Then, she spun back around and walked briskly back to the discarded feeding bottle on the hay bales, only muttering a half-sincere "Good day" to Mitch as she passed him.

* * *

><p>Brittany finished putting down the last of the fresh straw beds in the cow and horse stalls, her final task for the day, well after dark at around eight o'clock. She made her way over to the pasture where Santana had spent her day helping the last of the cows give birth to their calves to see if the Latina was finished for the day as well.<p>

Santana was kneeling by a reclining cow with labored breathing. The Latina's furrowed brow and frown of concentration blossomed into a radiant smile as soon as she saw her blonde counterpart approaching. "Evening, Britt. I would hug you, but at the moment, I don't think I should," the brunette laughed as she gestured towards her clothes and skin that were stained with blood and dirt from her hard day's work.

Brittany laughed with her as she kneeled down beside the Latina. "Well, that's never stopped me before," the blonde grinned as she looked around quickly to make sure no one could see them in the dark and placed a chaste kiss upon Santana's full mouth, causing the brunette's smile to broaden at her cheekiness. Leaning back, Brittany smoothed some of Santana's dark locks away from her face, once again losing herself in the dark pools of the Latina's eyes. "Will you still be a while yet?" Brittany inquired, as she finally tore her gaze away from Santana long enough to remember why she had approached the brunette to begin with.

"Yes, unfortunately. This heifer seems to be having a particularly hard time," Santana said softly, her compassion for the animal evident in her voice.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Brittany asked, concerned.

Santana smiled again at the blonde's caring nature. How could her father not see it and realize what a valuable rancher she would be? "Well, there's not much to do other than wait, but if she takes too long and the calf starts to get distressed, we may have to take it out of her surgically. If that happens, I don't care what my father says. I would want you here. You have a way of calming all the animals, and this heifer is going to be frantic if we have to cut her open. I don't want her to suffer any more than is absolutely necessary," Santana finished, taking hold of Brittany's hand and squeezing it to emphasize the sincerity in her statement about the blonde's abilities.

Brittany looked away shyly, like she always did when Santana paid her a compliment about her work. "Thank you, Santana. I would wait out here with you anyway, even if there wasn't anything I could do to help."

Brittany felt the Latina squeeze her hand tighter and looked up to see Santana's eyes overflowing with love for her. "I know you would," Santana responded softly, and then she leaned forward and captured Brittany's lips in another quick, tender kiss.

"All right, well, how about I head back to the house and bring us back some food to eat while we wait? It could be a long night," Brittany suggested as they broke the kiss.

Santana smiled and nodded her agreement. "That sounds perfect. Hurry back now," she teased and laughed as Brittany got to her feet in a mock show of haste.

The Latina's laughter warmed Brittany's heart as she made the short trek to the ranch house. When Brittany entered the spacious house and made her way back to the kitchen, she was stopped in her tracks when she passed by Mr. Lopez's study and heard the distinct sound of Rachel's voice.

"You can't, Papa! You _mustn't_!" Rachel's shrill shriek pierced the air and carried easily out into the hallway where Brittany was standing, a clear indication that she was, indeed, truly upset. Her voice only reached that pitch when she wasn't feigning indignation in order to get her way.

Brittany heard Marco sigh, "Rachel, we've had that horse for over five months now, and not one of the ranch hands has been able to break her. At this point, it is costing us more to keep her than she is worth to you and the ranch. It's time to admit that purchasing her was a mistake. Why don't we just sell her and get a new horse for you, one that isn't so rebellious?"

"But I love Starlight! I can't just let her go because she's being a little stubborn! Please, Papa, one more week? If no one can break her by then, we can sell her. Please, Papa?" Brittany heard the desperation in her voice and knew that her chocolate eyes were shiny with tears.

The blonde knew Marco's response before he even said it. "All right. One week. No more than that, understood?" He could never resist Rachel when she put on the waterworks like that.

This time, Rachel's shriek was filled with joy, and Brittany imagined she was hugging her father as she said, "Oh, thank you, Papa, _thank you!_"

Brittany chuckled to herself quietly as she walked away from the study and into the kitchen, where Elizabeth Mason stood making the sandwiches she seemed always to have on hand during the calving season.

Elizabeth had, indeed, survived the earthquake in San Francisco. Her sister, with whom she was staying when she finally left her good-for-nothing husband Finn, lived up on Nob Hill with her husband, who was a wealthy banker, so they were saved from most of the wreckage, much like the Changs. Elizabeth only returned to Oakland when she learned that Finn had been shot for trying to loot a bottle of whiskey from someone's house, apparently disregarding the mayor's mandate that all looters be shot on sight. Marco Lopez wasted no time in asking her to be their live-in cook—a position which she readily accepted, since the Lopez's were a respected family in and around Oakland.

Brittany liked her immediately. Although she seemed a little frigid on the outside and liked to gossip with the best of them, Elizabeth was nothing but warm and kind to Brittany, even when she learned the true nature of the blonde's relationship with the eldest Lopez daughter. It would have been impossible to keep their relationship a secret from her, considering they lived in the same house—it was easier and safer to keep it from the ranch hands, who may have been less accommodating if they learned the truth. Elizabeth had just said that love is love and God couldn't possibly disapprove of love.

The woman quickly became a sort of mother figure for Brittany, and she greatly appreciated the older woman's presence in the house, especially when Marco was there—Elizabeth seemed to have a calming effect on the otherwise stern rancher. Brittany often wondered if Marco and Elizabeth had deeper feelings for one another, but Santana was adamant that her father hadn't so much as looked at another woman after her mother had passed on, although Santana often wished he had, if only to save himself the loneliness she was sure he's felt every day. Brittany, however, wasn't so convinced. She was sure, in time, Marco and Elizabeth would realize their feelings for each other.

Brittany retrieved a bottle already filled with drinking water from the counter and accepted the two sandwiches Elizabeth offered her to take back out to Santana, her dark green eyes warm and filled with mirth as she witnessed the young blonde's eagerness to get back out to her love, even though they had a long, tedious night of calf-birthing ahead of them.

Food in hand, Brittany hurried back out to the pasture where Santana still sat waiting, softly speaking to the heifer, trying to make it as comfortable as she could. Brittany couldn't help smiling at the sight. _She would be an excellent mother_, she thought to herself as she resumed her spot next to the Latina on the ground.

"Here you go," Brittany said, handing a sandwich to the brunette, who took it gratefully.

"Oh, thank you, Britt. Elizabeth makes the best sandwiches, doesn't she?" Santana practically drooled as she bit into the soft, thick, homemade bread encircling salty cured ham.

Brittany chuckled at Santana's enthusiasm. "She does, indeed. How's the birthing coming along?" she asked, sending a concerned glance to the struggling heifer.

"She seems to be doing a little better now. At least her breathing isn't so ragged," the Latina replied, the hopeful tone in her voice hard to miss.

"That's good. I hope she can give birth to her calf naturally," Brittany said, earning a nod in response from the brunette. "I overheard Rachel and your father talking in the study when I went up to the house. He's going to give the hands one more week to break Starlight before he gets rid of her," Brittany told her, not-so-subtly changing the subject.

"Oh, I hope someone can do it. Rachel really loves that horse." Santana may not have always seen eye to eye with her younger sister, but she loved the shorter girl dearly and wanted her to be happy. Marco had gotten the mare for Rachel as her birthday present when she turned eighteen in September. She was a beautiful animal with a shiny, black coat with one lone white spot between her eyes—the inspiration behind her namesake. Rachel had instantly fallen in love with it, but she was forbidden to ride the horse until one of the ranch hands could ride it without being thrown. So far, no one has succeeded, and Marco was an impatient man. Santana was surprised he had lasted this long, but that was largely because Rachel had him wrapped around her little finger, she was certain. "Why don't you tame her, Brittany? You ride better than all of the ranch hands combined," Santana said, turning to face the blonde.

Brittany gave her a small smile. "Because your father won't let me ride her either until one of the _hands_ rides her successfully first," Brittany said quietly, with just a tinge of frustration in her voice.

"Yes, but perhaps he will change his mind since this is the last chance anyone will have to tame her," Santana suggested, reaching out to grasp Brittany's hand.

Brittany sighed and intertwined their fingers as she looked back at the pregnant heifer in front of them. "Perhaps…"

* * *

><p>In the early evening the following Thursday, nearly a week after the final calves were birthed—the heifer that was struggling the last night finally gave birth naturally to her calf shortly after midnight, much to Santana and Brittany's relief—all the available ranch hands, including Santana and Mr. Lopez, had gathered around the corral, prepared to break Starlight for Rachel.<p>

Marco had promised a monetary bonus of one hundred dollars to whoever could break the spirited mare. While the offer of money had enticed all of the cowboys into attempting the seemingly impossible task of taming Starlight, Mitch Garrison had his sight set on an even higher prize: the hand of Rachel Lopez.

Mitch figured, with Mr. Lopez present, he could impress the rancher enough with his horsemanship to get the terse man to agree to allow him to court Rachel. Besides, he saw how Rachel was looking at him there in the middle of the corral. He would have her eating out of the palm of his hand in no time, he was certain.

Brittany stood off to the side of the corral next to Santana as they watched the spectacle before them.

"That Mitch just thinks he's something special, doesn't he?" Santana muttered to Brittany. She had never liked the arrogant cowboy, but she couldn't do anything about him because her father was still in charge, and for some reason Marco respected the man.

Brittany nodded. "Apparently so. It also seems like he thinks Rachel thinks the same," she added as she watched Mitch direct his cocky bravado toward Rachel.

"I doubt he would be so confident if he realized that she was only putting on a show for them so they would be more willing to try to break Starlight," Santana replied, causing both women to erupt into quiet fits of laughter, images of Mitch's embarrassed indignation dancing through their minds.

The two girls sobered when they heard a cheer rise up from the men a short distance away at the entrance of the corral. _This should be interesting,_ Brittany thought to herself as she watched Mitch saunter into the corral with his usual arrogant confidence that Brittany found off-putting.

Burt had saddled the horse and was holding it at the ready in the center of the corral. He had covered the mare's eyes with a large bandana to keep it calm. He wanted to give the men the best chance they had to break the animal for Rachel.

Rachel moved up to the fence out of the way to stand by her father, and the remaining ranch hands followed, all crossing their arms over the top of the railing.

Back in the corral, Burt was holding Starlight as Mitch mounted her. Mitch gave a brisk nod, and Burt ripped away the bandana. He scurried toward the edge of the corral and scrambled over the fence near the spot where Brittany and Santana stood.

Starlight wasted no time in bucking off her rider. Mitch landed with a thud that stirred up the dust around him. The horse kicked the air another time or two before trotting over to a distant corner. Everyone seemed as disappointed as Rachel that Mitch hadn't met with more success.

"I'll give it a try," Frank announced from his perch amongst the other hands at the fence, but his voice didn't carry much confidence. Brittany figured the man would be lucky to come away with everything intact. A horse could sense a rider's mood.

Mitch got up and started to hit the dust off of his britches. "No, I'll try again," he almost snapped at his friend, frustrated that he had failed so miserably in front of Rachel and her father.

Standing beside Brittany, Burt mumbled, "I know Mitch is sweet on Rachel, but I swear that horse is more stubborn than Marco."

"That's because he's trying to break her," Brittany said quietly, causing both Santana and Burt to look at her in confusion.

"How else are you going to ride her?" Burt asked.

"You tame her," Brittany responded as though it were obvious.

Burt propped his elbow on the fence and stared at Brittany. "You say that like you know how to do it."

Brittany looked away to hide the blush she knew was rising in her cheeks. "I've had some experience dealing with horses when I was younger," she replied cryptically, not wanting Burt to know about her job as an exercise boy. She felt Santana's comforting hand on her arm and sent the Latina a warm, grateful glance before focusing her attention on what was happening in the corral again.

Mitch had started twirling a lasso within the confines of the corral, slowly walking toward Starlight.

"That's just going to spook her," Brittany told the foreman.

"Mitch, hold off!" Burt yelled, slightly startling both Brittany and Santana with the suddenness of his outburst.

The ranch hand turned around, the rope going limp in his hand. "I have to catch her so I can ride her again."

"I'm going to give Brittany a chance to tame her," Burt suddenly announced.

Brittany wouldn't have been more surprised if Burt had knocked her upside the head. It seemed as though Marco was just as surprised, as his gaze narrowed calculatingly at Burt, deciding whether or not to trust his most highly valued ranch hand's judgment on the matter. Brittany figured Marco must have come to the conclusion to accept Burt's decision because all he did was give the foreman a nearly imperceptible nod and returned his attention to the corral.

Mitch, on the other hand, barked out his laughter. "What does a _woman_ know about breaking a horse?"

"Reckon we'll find out," Burt responded. He nudged Brittany's shoulder. "Go on. Show us what you know," he said to her with a warm smile. He was certain she would be the one to succeed.

Brittany felt the hand on her arm squeeze ever so slightly, and she turned to face Santana. The Latina was smiling brightly, happy that Brittany was finally being given a chance to prove her worth in front of everyone. "Good luck, Britt. I know you can do it," she whispered. Santana had wanted to lean forward and give the blonde a good luck kiss, but she couldn't with nearly all the ranch workers' eyes on them.

Brittany smiled at the shorter woman and showed her thanks by covering the brunette's hand on her arm with her own and grasping it gently. With one final smile at the beautiful Latina, Brittany bent her body and slipped between two slats of the fence.

Glaring at her through narrowed eyes, Mitch held the rope out to her.

Brittany walked past him. "No, thank you. I won't need that."

"You're going to land on your backside, girl," Mitch called after her.

Brittany didn't think so, because she knew something Mitch didn't. She knew the horse. And the horse knew her. For the past week, Brittany had been coming to the corral whenever she had a spare moment—that couldn't be spent with Santana—and got acquainted with the mare, sometimes talking to her, sometimes petting her, and sometimes just keeping the horse company.

* * *

><p>Santana stood at her spot next to Burt at the fence as she watched Brittany with the mare. Her heart began to pound at the sight of Brittany standing beside Starlight—simply standing beside her and rubbing her neck as though she had all day to do so, as though the sun hadn't already begun to set and invited in twilight. There was something so alluring to Santana about the way Brittany was with animals—she looked so beautiful with her golden braids and her pale skin in stark contrast to Starlight's ebony coat, and the way she interacted with the horse showcased her nurturing and caring nature sent a flood of warmth throughout Santana's body. <em>She would be an excellent mother,<em> the Latina found herself thinking again, surprised that that thought didn't scare her in the least.

As she watched, she noticed Brittany's lips moving, which made the brunette smile. Brittany had a penchant for talking to all animals as though they could actually understand her, like they were people. Santana found it endearing, and Brittany had explained to her that talking to them helped create a bond of trust that was necessary between animal and owner if the relationship were to be successful.

Brittany gripped the saddle horn with one hand. Then, without using the stirrup, the blonde managed to throw herself onto the saddle in a fluid movement that Santana had barely a second to appreciate before Starlight began bucking wildly.

But unlike Mitch, who had lost his balance and his hold with the first kick of the mare's hind legs, Brittany hung on. Although Santana wasn't certain that _hanging on_ was the way to describe the manner in which Brittany rode the horse.

She didn't hold her body stiffly as Mitch had. Instead, she seemed to flow with Starlight, almost as though they were one. With one hand clutching the saddle horn, she raised the other for balance.

Starlight began to kick less, to take several quick steps before bucking again.

A few more steps. A twist. A kick. A gallop. A trot.

And then she was cantering around the corral as though it were the most natural thing in the world for her to do.

At that moment, Santana thought she could have heard a leaf land on the ground as an unnatural hush descended around them. No one had expected the horse to settle into an easy lope. No one had expected the one to tame the rebellious animal to be the young _woman_ that most of the members of the ranch had deemed unfit for such work.

* * *

><p>Brittany brought the horse to a halt, swung one long leg back, and dismounted. With a small smile, she guided the horse over the Rachel and her father and handed the reins to the short brunette.<p>

"You should probably let one of the hands ride her for a day or two, just to make sure she doesn't get skittish about carrying a rider," Brittany said quietly to Rachel, who had a look of pure gratitude across her face.

"Nonsense," Marco quipped, startling Brittany. "You will be the one to look after Starlight until you deem it safe for Rachel to ride her. You have more than proven your worth to this ranch over the past months, and from this moment forward, you will be treated as such." It wasn't an outright apology, but Brittany knew it was the best she was going to get, especially out here in front of everyone.

"Thank you, sir," Brittany responded, trying desperately to hold the tears threatening to fall at bay—it wouldn't do to cry now.

Marco nodded curtly in response and then turned to the rest of the people standing around them at the corral. "Well, what are you all standing around staring at? Get back to your rooms and have dinner," Marco ordered as he started heading back to the main house.

The ranch hands all quickly took their leave, with Mitch sending Brittany a resigned look of approval—a look which earned him a diminutive smile in response from Brittany—before he, too, headed off to his small cabin for dinner. What else could he do? He couldn't very well continue to treat Brittany as he had been now that she had garnered Marco's esteem—not if he wanted to keep his job. In any case, even he had to admit that the blonde woman's mastery over horsemanship was something to be respected.

Meanwhile, Rachel was leading Starlight back to her stall to remove her saddle and brush down the glossy coat of her new pet. She would be forever indebted to Brittany for saving Rachel's beloved horse. Brittany was simply happy to help out her pseudo-sister-in-law—the look of pure joy on Rachel's face was worth every second of the blonde's struggle with the powerful animal.

"You were amazing, Brittany," Santana said as she approached Brittany and wrapped her arms around the taller woman's waist, the two women being the only ones left out in the corral.

Brittany grinned and pulled her closer. "And it seems as though your father is finally coming around," Brittany said, bringing a hand up to tenderly stroke the Latina's soft cheek with her thumb.

Sighing into the touch, the brunette smiled warmly at her love. "I knew you could do it. There was no way my father _couldn't_ see your true worth for too long," she said, looking deep into the taller woman's ocean blue eyes. "Speaking of your accomplishments, I think this occasion calls for a special celebration," Santana added, her warm smile shifting to one of invitation as her eyes twinkled with mirth and desire.

Picking up on the hint, Brittany grabbed Santana's hand and started running back to the house, their laughter ringing through the cool night air.

* * *

><p>Two weeks later, Brittany was holding a fence post steady as Santana drove it into the ground with a hammer. The fence in the northeastern corner of the Ambling Acres Ranch was badly in need of repair. That area of the ranch wasn't used very often—there just wasn't a need for the land, according to Marco, at least not now.<p>

Brittany stood back and wiped the sweat away from her brow with her sleeve and looked out at the expanse of green pasture before them. "I've been thinking," Brittany began as she turned to face Santana, who had also decided to take a break on the hot afternoon.

"What have you been thinking?" she inquired, noticing the nervous trepidation in the taller woman's eyes.

"Your father said that he has no real use for this land, correct?" At Santana's affirmative nod, she continued, "Well, I think I have an idea of how to utilize this pasture while bringing in money for the ranch."

"Oh? What is your idea?" Santana asked, highly curious about what the blonde had in mind.

"We could expand the cattle operation to include horse breeding and use this pasture for it," Brittany began, looking nervously between the dark orbs of the Latina for any sign of doubt. "We wouldn't have to start very big, but we could grow the operation in time, if it picks up. The income that would come expanding to horse breeding would outweigh the costs of maintaining a large number of horses. If the price your father pays for cattle goes up or the buyers' prices go down, we could supplement the loss of income with selling horses."

Brittany continued to explain her business plan, which included a detailed description of how the operation would be run and her hopeful plan of using orphans to help with exercising the horses and handling day-to-day chores—Brittany claimed that not only would this give the orphans, boy and girl alike, a chance to learn skills they could use in the future, but also would provide Marco with cheap labor. The more Brittany talked, her enthusiasm for the idea dripping from every word, the more Santana's heart swelled with pride and love for the blonde woman.

"So, what do you think?" Brittany asked when she finally finished her pitch and tried to gauge the Latina's reaction.

"Brittany…I think that is a brilliant idea! If you propose this idea to my father, I have no doubt he will agree to it. It makes fiscal sense and your plan to use orphans as workers is generous and altruistic," Santana gushed, a bright, warm smile plastered firmly upon her face.

"You really think so?" Brittany asked, looking away, still unsure about the idea she had been formulating for a while now.

Smiling even wider at Brittany's uncertainty, Santana stepped forward and took the blonde's face gently in her hands, forcing her to look at the brunette. "I _know_ so," she said, looking intently into the taller woman's crystal blue eyes and kissing her firmly on the mouth, conveying all the sincerity she felt in the statement and all her love for the blonde woman.

After a few long, wonderful seconds, Santana broke the kiss and smiled at Brittany. "Let's finish up this fence so we can tell my father your plan," she said, picking up her hammer. Brittany laughed at her eagerness and moved quickly to hold another new fence post in place.

* * *

><p><em>June, 1907<em>

With a half dozen cowboys riding with her, Brittany guided a herd of untamed mustangs into the waiting corral. One of the men closed the gate, and the horses pranced around the enclosure. Brittany would give them a few days to adjust to their new surroundings before she would begin the arduous task of taming them.

As Brittany looked over the new horses, she thought about all the things that have happened over the last few months. Santana had been right—it didn't take much to convince Marco of the lucrative possibilities of expanding the cattle operation to include horse breeding. It surprised Brittany to no end, but Marco had even chosen to place her as the head of the operation, giving her mostly free reign over the daily running of the business. He had even allowed Brittany to take on a couple orphans as workers.

"I'll see to your horse," Mitch said, taking her horse's reins and heading toward the barn.

"Thank you," Brittany replied. She still couldn't get used to the friendliness of the previously cocky ranch hand.

"Miss Brittany," a young voice said from behind her. Brittany turned to see Amelia, a young orphan about ten years old with blonde hair and deep brown eyes, standing behind her holding a pail of grain for the horses' feed bags. The girl was Brittany's favorite—she was always eager to help out and Brittany was surprised with how quickly she picked up on her duties. Over the past two months, ever since Brittany had hired Amelia to work for her, the tall blonde—as well as Santana—had fallen in love with the young girl and viewed her as a sort of daughter.

"Yes, Amelia?" Brittany responded with a smile.

"After I fill the feed bags, I'm finished with my morning chores," the young blonde said, her eyes twinkling with excitement. Brittany had promised to start to teach her how to exercise the horses today after she had completed her chores.

Brittany couldn't hold back her smile at Amelia's eagerness. "Good job, and in record time too," Brittany teased lightly, laughing when she noticed the faint blush creep up on the younger girl's high cheekbones. "So, are you ready to learn how to exercise the horses?" Brittany inquired, her grin widening at the girl's enthusiastic nod in response. "Okay, let's get started, shall we?" Brittany said, turning to head toward the horses' stalls, Amelia right on her heels.

"I wish you could have been there to see her today, Santana," Brittany gushed as she and Santana prepared for bed that evening. "Amelia was so wonderful. She picked up almost everything already, and it was only her first day!" Santana smiled warmly at the way Brittany talked about the girl, the tall blonde's love for her evident in the way her eyes sparkled at the mere mention of the young orphan.

"I wish I could have been there too," Santana said, a slight twinge of sadness in her voice. Marco had gone on a trip to meet with some cattle buyers in Sacramento. Usually, he would take Santana with him, but he wanted to give her some experience running the ranch without him there, so she was even busier than usual overseeing all the daily happenings of the ranch. She really wanted to be there when Brittany finally handed Amelia the reins and increased her responsibilities to include exercising the horses.

The Latina, like Brittany, loved the little girl dearly. In fact, they had been meaning to talk to Amelia about the possibility of moving her into their part of the main house and adding her officially to the family. They couldn't really adopt her by law, but they could do it in spirit, and the girl understood that Brittany and Santana loved each other like women usually loved men—she thought it was fantastic. _"Who needs boys when there can be two girls?"_ she had said when Brittany had explained her relationship with Santana to the younger blonde. Marco had already given them his blessing, so all that remained was for the women to approach Amelia about it.

Santana smiled and approached Brittany where she stood in her nightgown by their bed. "I'm so proud of you, Britt. You've really done it," Santana said, looking deeply into the blonde's eyes and wrapping her arms around her neck.

Just as Santana expected, Brittany's face flushed pink from the compliment. "Thank you, Santana, but really _we've_ done it. You're running the ranch now, even if it's not permanent yet—your father trusts you with being able to handle it. You inspire me to want to succeed," Brittany said quietly, smiling at her love.

Santana's heart burst with love for the blonde, and she leaned up and kissed Brittany, pulling the taller woman flush against her own nightgown-clad body. Brittany wrapped her arms tightly around the Latina and deepened the kiss, her tongue delving into Santana's warm, welcoming mouth.

Santana's left hand trailed down Brittany's torso, wanting to touch more of her, all of her. Her hand reached the hem of Brittany's nightgown and started to drag it up the blonde's legs slowly, her nails scraping against the pale skin of Brittany's thigh creating goosebumps in their wake. Brittany moaned into Santana's mouth at the feeling, a pool of warmth flooding below her stomach. Santana's hand had just reached the apex of Brittany's thighs, causing the blonde to quiver with desire when—

"Santana, Brittany, look at this!" Rachel exclaimed as she barged into the room, holding a paper in her hands. Santana and Brittany scrambled apart, lowering Brittany's night clothes to a more respectable level. Rachel noticed their heavy breathing and flushed faces. "Oh, my. Did I interrupt something?" she asked, her eyes wide with surprise and embarrassment.

"Yes, in fact, you did," Santana snapped, muttering under her breath about needing to install a lock on their bedroom door.

Brittany, her face pink with embarrassment and arousal, laughed softly at Santana's frustrated comment. "It's all right, Rachel. What was it you wanted to show us?" Brittany asked, smiling kindly at her pseudo-sister-in-law.

"As you know, I like to peruse the Society section of the newspaper. Well, you will not believe what's printed in today's paper!" Rachel declared, thrusting the paper into Brittany's hands.

Brittany turned to Santana and they looked over the paper. Their looks of confusion changed to ones of shock and amusement when they finally saw the article to which Rachel was referring. It read: _San Francisco Man Facing 5 Years for Fraud_.

Apparently, Arthur Abrams had been trying to trick a wealthy older widow into marrying him, the same way he had tried to seduce Rachel. However, this woman was suspicious of his attentions and had a private investigator check him out, discovering that he had been using counterfeit money that could be traced back to Missouri and had actually planned on taking all of her money after they were wed—he had foolishly written it all in another journal.

Santana erupted into a loud fit of laughter. "That scoundrel finally got what was coming to him all right," she said, smiling at her sister and Brittany, whose smile faded a bit when she looked at Rachel.

"Are you all right with this, Rachel?" Brittany couldn't help asking. Sure, it had been over a year since Rachel learned the truth about Arthur, but even Brittany still felt a twinge of sadness from time to time over her own gullibility in regard to Arthur—she knew Rachel's pain was more severe, since he had actively pursued her.

"Me? Oh, I am quite all right with this. I actually found it rather amusing, and I am glad that justice has finally been served," Rachel said with genuine sincerity. "Besides, I have Joseph now, a real man who does care for me," she finished with a dreamy smile.

In May, the Harlan family had visited the Ambling Acres Ranch and had stayed with the Lopez's for a few weeks. During that time, Joseph and Rachel had taken a shine to one another. They didn't really get a chance to get to know each other in San Francisco the year before because Marco had been pushing Santana at Joseph and Rachel was preoccupied with Arthur, but now that they had spent some time together, the pair quickly developed feelings for one another. Now, even though Joseph was busy helping run his family's vineyard in Napa, everyone was anticipating a proposal sometime soon. Rachel couldn't have been happier at the prospect. Joseph was a kind, hardworking man, and she loved him very much.

"It's amazing how things have changed, isn't it?" Santana asked as she once again wrapped her arms around Brittany.

"It certainly is," Rachel agreed, smiling. "Well, I shall take my leave of you now. Carry on," she teased with a wink, her eyes twinkling as she turned and left the room.

"I love you," Brittany whispered to Santana once they were alone again. Santana didn't respond with words. She just leaned up and kissed the blonde who held her heart. Warmth sluiced through both women as they gave themselves up to the sensations the kiss offered and the promise of a long and happy future together.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, there it is! I hope it was worth the wait, and I also hope it satisfies at least some of your ranch!Brittana desires. ;)**

**Also, Rachel Lopez - Official cockblock. ;)**

**Thanks again to everyone who has read and enjoyed this story! I don't think I should thank people who read it and didn't like it. It's not my fault you kept reading. _You think you're _sooo_ funny, don't you? _Why, yes, I do think I'm hilarious. ;P  
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**Ahem! Yeah, so, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter (and, hopefully, this story) and maybe I'll see you around sometime! :D  
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